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Fortitude - a novella by Andy Duncan



      Fortitude
      a novella by Andy Duncan
      My life started over on May 14, 1916, in a hut in the foothills of the
      Sierra Madre, between Rubio and San Geronimo, about 300 miles south of El
      Paso.
      Pershing had put me in command of a party of twelve, sent to town in three
      automobiles to buy maize for the horses. That accomplished, we devoted
      most of the day to my own project: We went looking for Villa's lieutenant,
      Cardenas. That's what brought us, eventually, to the hut, where we found,
      not Cardenas, but -- I was informed -- his uncle.
      "Por favor, Senor, por favor!"
      In the thirty minutes since Private Adams had unsheathed his knife, we had
      learned a number of things from this fat uncle: that he did not know any
      Cardenas; that we were filthy American pigs; that he had not seen Cardenas
      in months; that the merciful Jesus would save him; that the Americans
      should be crushed underfoot like lizards; that he had seen Cardenas a week
      ago, but not since; that our fathers were bastards and our mothers,
      whores; and, again, that the merciful Jesus would save him. All this in
      Spanish, though these bandits could speak English as least as well as I
      could. Spanish seemed to be a point of honor with them. I respected that.
      "Santa Maria!"
      The man heaved and strained against his bonds, trying to avoid the knife.
      His sweaty shirt pulled taut over his belly, and one button popped off to
      fall onto the dirt floor. I picked it up, rubbed it between my fingers.
      Brass.
      "Madre de Dios!"
      At that moment, with a sudden, sickening exhilaration, I realized
      something. I knew I had held this man's button in my fingers before. I'd
      heard these squeals and bleats, seen my men's sunburned, darting scowls,
      suffered the fried-bean-and-motor-oil stink of this miserable hut.
      Since my youth I had been accustomed to sudden, vivid memories of lives in
      other places, other bodies, other times -- memories that lingered, became
      part of my present self. I still could taste the urine I was forced to
      drink from my helmet when I was dying of thirst for the glory of Carthage;
      it was brackish and sweet in the back of my throat, and as real as my
      mother's orange punch, gulped at the end of a day's sailing off Catalina.
      That son-of-a-bitch helmet -- it leaked like a sieve. But what I relived
      in that Mexican hut was not a life centuries removed. No, I relived a
      previous May 14, 1916, when I stood in the same hut, among the same men,
      holding the same button, and was the same person, likewise named George
      Smith Patton, Jr.
      This was a first, a past life as myself. The initial disorientation
      passed, replaced by a giddy surge of confidence. I savored the moment.
      Would the feeling last longer than a second or two? It did. In fact, the
      memories became more complete, rushing into my head and filling it the way
      one's youth rushes back because of a piano tune, a whiff of gunpowder, a
      slant of light.
      Some intellectual pissant would call this deja vu. Any soldier would call
      it intelligence, and act.
      "That's enough," I said. I flicked away the button. "Let's go."
      "What about this rat right here, lieutenant?"
      I leaned over him, lifted his bloody chin. "You're a good man," I said
      into his face, in Spanish. "You have been very unhelpful. Carry on." I
      saluted him, and walked out.
      As we waded into the broiling sun, wincing at the glare off the hoods of
      the Dodges, I said, "Son of a bitch should get a medal. Too bad he's not
      in a real army. Saddle up, boys." The auto sagged sideways as I clambered
      aboard. Waller spat on his hands and went to work on the crank.
      "Where to, lieutenant?"
      I could remember everything. Everything. I died at age 60 in a German
      hospital room, with tongs in my temples and fishhooks in my cheeks to keep
      my head from moving and crushing what was left of my spine --
      No time for that.
      "San Miguelito," I said.
      "But lieutenant," Adams said, "that ranch has already been checked out.
      Cardenas ain't there."
      "He's there now. Take my word for it, soldier. He's there." The Dodge
      farted and shivered and started to chug, and Waller jumped behind the
      wheel, shirt plastered to his back. I reached for my cigars as we lurched
      forward, tires spinning in the dirt. I knew the fat uncle would stagger to
      the door, rubbing his wrists and staring at us as we drove away, and when
      he did I waved and tossed him a cigar. Same as he had before, he just let
      it fall to the dirt. Lay there like a turd. Don't know when they've got it
      good, these Mexicans.
      As we drove I remembered the gunfight that awaited us. I told the men
      exactly what to expect. They looked at me like I was crazy, but they
      listened. Hell, they were good soldiers. They didn't care whether I was
      crazy, they just wanted someone capable to tell them what to do.
      Before, there had been some question about who actually killed Cardenas --
      not in the papers, which gave me all the credit, of course, but in the
      ranks, since there was such a volley it was hard to tell whose .45 had
      done the job. We hadn't even identified Cardenas until after it was all
      over. I'd wasted most of my bullets on some damn horse-rustling nobody.
      Not this time. If I had to live the next thirty years knowing I was doomed
      to a worse death than Hitler, then goddamn it, I was going to make use of
      my other knowledge, too. Shouting to the other cars as we drove along, I
      described Cardenas and his horse, and made it clear: He's mine.
      San Miguelito was just the same. Mostly. Same sun like a hot rough hand
      squeezing your temples. Same four bowlegged hombres outside the gate
      skinning a cow, hide coming off in jerks and pops. They didn't even look
      up when the shooting started, when the three riders burst out of the gate
      and tried to outrun the Dodges.
      That silver saddle made a damned impressive display. Hard to miss. I fired
      two shots, and he hit the ground like one of Caesar's winesacks. "BANDIT
      KILLER," the headlines had said, and they'd say it again.
      As we searched the hacienda, Cardenas' wife and mother stood in the
      hallway beside a new Victrola and its crate, stared at us. The missus,
      about Beatrice's age, rocked a baby in her arms. As I passed, the granny
      spat on me. I shot the lock off the chapel door and kicked it in to find
      three old ladies praying in the corner, holding up their hands to God. No
      surprises ... although: Hadn't the baby been awake before? Now its bundled
      silence made me suspicious. "Excuse me, senorita," I whispered, as I
      gently pulled back the blanket. It was, indeed, a baby: little wrinkled
      face, thick black hair plastered over its forehead, sound asleep. I teared
      up. I always had a soft spot for babies. "Congratulations," I told its
      mama, and the baby's granny spat on me again. More guts than some American
      boys, sad to say. More guts than that yellow bastard in Sicily would have,
      so many years in the future.
      There was one more difference at San Miguelito, a big one. Before, I had
      climbed onto the roof to make sure no one was waiting up there to ambush
      us as we left. No one was, but I stepped on a rotten place and fell
      through up to my armpits -- not a prime fighting position! Damned
      embarrassing, too. This time I walked a different route, gave the rotten
      place a wide berth, and kept an eye out for similar dark patches.
      I was so intent on not falling through that I let a gap-toothed Villista
      get the drop on me. He darted around a corner, pistol in hand, and Adams
      shot him almost before I could look up.
      As Adams searched the bandit's pockets, I stood there like a fool,
      dumbfounded for the first and last time in the Mexican campaign. "He
      wasn't supposed to be there," I said.
      "Rats're liable to pop out from anywhere," Adams said. He flipped a gold
      piece into the air, caught it. "Good weight. Don't let it rattle you,
      lieutenant," he added, and I resolved to give him a week's latrine duty
      for that. In addition to his commendation, of course. Fair's fair.
      The rest went pretty much as before. As we drove off, about fifty
      Villistas came galloping up the ravine, and we fired a shot or two, but
      they didn't chase us far. Wasn't much of a race. God, the speed of the
      motored units to come! What Jackson could have done with them in the
      Shenandoah, I thought as dust billowed around me -- or Napoleon on the
      steppes! I rubbed my shoulder, remembered my last backward look at the
      torches and spires of Moscow, felt again the Russian numbness that always
      lurked somewhere in my bones, even as my cheeks began to blister in this
      damnable Mexican sun. I tugged my goggles out a few inches and poked my
      face. Beneath my eyes was a sore borderline I could trace with my gloved
      finger. I let the goggles snap back into place. "Soldiers never fight
      where it's comfortable," I told Adams and Waller. "Think of all those
      Marines sweating it out in Haiti, or in Panama. Why, if they sent us to
      the French Riviera, it'd be a hellhole soon enough. How fast will this
      thing go, anyway?"
      All the camp business faltered and got quiet as our little procession
      drove in. We took it slow, giving everybody plenty of time to look, and
      many fell in with us, walking alongside. Cardenas' lolling head on the
      hood seemed to return the soldiers' stares. By the time we hauled up the
      brakes and let the engines die in front of the command tent, dozens of
      doughboys were standing around, whistling and muttering the Old Man did it
      and nothing else I could hear. Two or three had potatoes and paring knives
      in hand. Never again, I thought, no more of that for me. Then Black Jack
      stepped out, standing ramrod straight as usual, a mustache for a mouth.
      The men and I stood in the autos and saluted, and then I stepped down and
      stood at attention and said, "We've brought in Cardenas, sir."
      Pershing nodded. "So you say, Lieutenant. Which?"
      I grabbed Cardenas by the hair and lifted. His eyes were black with blood,
      and his face was a little burnt from the hood. Pershing acted as if he
      didn't know what to do with his hands, finally put them behind his back
      and said, "Yes. That's him."
      I let the head down gently so as not to dent the auto. Pershing looked at
      the other two bodies strapped across the other two hoods. He stepped a few
      paces toward the back of the automobiles and nodded when he saw the sacks
      of grain.
      "General, there's a fourth bandit, but he's stowed in the back. No room,
      you see. He's the one who would have shot me, if Corporal Adams hadn't got
      him first."
      Adams smiled and nodded, then looked mortified, as if he feared smiling
      and nodding were uncalled-for.
      "Good job, Corporal, good job, Lieutenant, good job, all of you," Pershing
      said, turning back toward his tent. "I'm sure commendations will be in
      order -- and if the Army gave medals for dramatics," he murmured as he
      passed me, close enough for me to smell the jalapenos on his breath, "then
      you'd certainly have a chestful of those, wouldn't you, Patton? Report
      after you bury them. And Patton -- you're lucky you remembered the maize."
      How could a letter-perfect salute look so perfunctory?
      I stood at attention and held my salute as he stalked away. I had been
      thinking in the Dodge about the strange opportunity afforded me, and now I
      wondered again, as I watched my idol stride back into the command tent,
      why I had been given another chance. Did Pershing have anything to do with
      it? Did Villa? I thought not. Even in childhood I had been convinced that
      my destiny was to lead a great army in a great battle in a great war,
      perhaps even the greatest war in the history of the world. That had proven
      true once, and I believed it would prove true again. No, I knew my destiny
      would not be achieved on some dusty road in Mexico, chasing the minions of
      a murdering border bandit. My destiny lay where it always had lain, in
      Europe, against the Nazis. But how much could I change along the way, and
      could I change it for the better?
      Pershing vanished into the shadowy triangle, and the flap snapped down.
      Behind me a Dodge backfired, and my head jerked as if struck: Mannheim,
      December 9, 1945. Hap Gay said, "Sit tight." At ten miles an hour, the
      loudest sound I ever heard. Silence. My head! Oh Jesus my back! The
      Cadillac's glass partition was spiderwebbed with gore. I sagged sideways,
      blood in my eyes, tried to wipe it away. Will it away. My arms wouldn't
      move. I couldn't sit up. My head lolled on Hap's shoulder. "Hell," I
      moaned. Drool on my chin. "Oh, hell."
      The wind kicked up, blowing that acrid needling Mexican dust into my nose
      and throat. Coughing, I forced myself back to the present, back to Mexico,
      1916, thinking: Even if I can't live a better life, I damn well can die a
      better death.
      I dropped my salute, whirled, and bellowed for the ditchdiggers. Before,
      they had been found asleep in the back of the mess tent after a half-hour
      search. This time I had them front and center in five minutes flat, and
      they shouldered their shovels with wary glances, wondering how in the hell
      I knew.
      That night, alone in my tent, I sat, knees wide apart, hunched over the
      upended trunk that served as a makeshift desk. I opened one of the tablets
      I'd been carrying since West Point: class notes, battle scenarios, quotes
      from Clausewitz, snatches of poetry, pledges to myself. "I hope I have got
      enough sence to be kiled in a great victory and be born between the ranks
      in a military funeral and morned by friend and foe alike," how old was I
      when I wrote that? Nineteen? Jesus God. I turned to a fresh page, creased
      the spine so that it would lie flat, daubed my pen in ink, and wrote a
      list.
      Writing never had come easy for me, but I wrote without pause for a long
      time. I'd had all day to think about what I would do, what I would change.
      The list almost filled the page. When I couldn't think of anything else,
      when I could avoid it no longer, I sighed and wrote at the top:
      DECEMBER 9, 1945
      KAFERTAL. OUTSIDE MANNHEIM
      Then I circled it. I stopped, pen suspended. What could I add to that?
      "Look out for the truck!" or something equally inane? Just avoid the damn
      intersection altogether, Georgie. Hell, don't take a trip at all that day.
      The ink on the pen nib beaded, bulged. I dared it to fall. Thirty goddamn
      miles per hour. Not a soldier's death at all. I moved the pen to the right
      just before the drop let go. I heard it dot the trunk. Perfectly easy to
      avoid, really. Maybe the easiest thing on the list.
      I heard something behind me: a faint scrambling, tiny claws on canvas. I
      set down my pen and reached for my knife. At night the desert creatures
      sought warmth and shelter. There, at the edge of the lamplight, a tail.
      Well, well, another Gila monster wanted to bed down with old Georgie. As I
      aimed, the tail stopped moving, as if the lizard knew what was coming.
      Tail looked to be about three inches -- that meant the head would be just
      about -- there. I threw the knife and the tail spasmed, lay still. I
      carried over the lantern, lifted the little bastard by the hilt of the
      knife (how its scales shine in the light, it's almost pretty), carried it
      to the tent flap, and flicked it outside with the others. Setting the
      knife aside to clean later, but not too far out of reach, I sat again on
      the rickety cot, picked up the pen. Hmm. Must be something else to list.
      Must be. But it was a damn good life the first go-round, wasn't it,
      Georgie? Hell of a good time. Look at that knife, would you. Not proper
      blood at all. More like some sort of oil, clotted with sand. Damned
      scuttling nuisances. Five since Tuesday, all out front in a little
      ant-teeming pile. They were only lizards, but you'd think they would
      learn.


      I miss that Mexican campaign. Hell, I miss all the campaigns. So many
      battles worth fighting again.
      "Isn't that right, Willie? Willie."
      Damn dog can't sit still two minutes without sleeping, even in the damp
      and miserable Limey outdoors. Didn't they teach him any discipline in the
      R.A.F., before his owner got shot out of the sky?
      "Willie!"
      I tap him with my crop. He looks up and yawns.
      "Look alive, Willie. God knows we need some signs of life around here."
      I tug the leash and he flops to his feet, raises one leg and waters the
      tread of a tank. The balsa wood darkens and streaks. "Good dog, Willie."
      So many great battles, great campaigns.
      Enemy scouts rustled in the hillside firs as I splashed my face and head
      with the cold foam of the rushing Rhine and stood up grinning, slinging
      droplets to left and right, daring some filthy goatherd to draw his bow
      against me, against Caesar, against Rome...
      The pipes wailed like our women and the mud gripped my toes as the clans
      marched across the sodden moor, pacing off the minutes until we could lift
      our swords and shed our blood for the one true king of Scotland...
      My granduncle put his callused hand in mine as we charged side by side and
      whooping across the northernmost ground claimed by the Seventh Virginia,
      hearing nothing but our blended gasping voices and the rush of tall grass
      against our legs before we leapt as one over that last stone wall --
      God, that death was good!
      But this is not Gaul, not Culloden, not Gettysburg. It's the first thing I
      wrote down, back in my tent in Mexico, the chief thing -- besides the
      obvious -- that I wanted to avoid: FORTITUDE.
      But here I am. Stuck here in England once again, a puppet commander of a
      paper army, mounting a phantom invasion out of canvas and paint.
      Willie depleted, he and I step into the road, lined for a hundred yards in
      both directions with facing rows of dummy tanks. Shermans, mostly. We
      stand there, all alone, blinking at the sunset. This has been one of those
      endless Limey midsummer days, when everybody but me looks up at the sun
      and pretends the day is over and retires for drinks and din-nah, with
      teatime still lead in their guts. What a place. Even the nights are fake.
      Over my head is one of the 75-millimeter-sized "guns." I grab it with both
      hands and squeeze. It's Ike's neck, and Hitler's too. The tin buckles with
      a plank. When I let go, the barrel is crooked. Those few inches off true
      would be enough to send a shell a dozen yards wide of the enemy. If there
      were a shell. If there were an enemy.
      "Dammit, Georgie, of course there's an enemy," I say aloud.
      Willie snorts and wags his tail and nuzzles my jodhpurs. "Want to kill
      some Nazis, boy?" I scratch rough between his ears. "Want to kill some
      krauts?"
      He lolls on his side and twitches one hind leg as I rub his belly.
      "Well, first we've got to sit here awhile. We've got to play pretend. Yes
      we do we do we do. We're just having a good time, a good good time, aren't
      we Willie, playing with our toys, playing war in our cold wet sandbox?
      Goddamn Eisenhower."
      I stand and kick a splintered dent in the front of a tank. Its walls sway
      in and out, back and forth, like a tent in a sandstorm.
      "If he thinks old Georgie is going to sit out Overlord a second time in
      this purple-pissing Limey Hooverville, well, then, Ike has another -- "
      "Be careful with the armor, please, General Patton, we've had rather a
      shortfall of nails."
      A tall, short-haired woman stands behind me, smiling. I don't know her.
      She wasn't here before. No matter; that's increasingly common. No cause
      for alarm, no threat to my destiny. Brit, of course. Posture good. Uniform
      not regulation, but close: khaki shirt, khaki slacks, boots, a dark brown
      jacket with a military cut, a knotted scarf where a man would wear a
      necktie. Bare-headed, though, goddamn it. Helmet hangs from her belt,
      along with a host of tools and implements, none regulation. She laughs.
      "Please don't be embarrassed, General. In the cinema we all talk to
      ourselves. It's the best rehearsal." She sticks out her hand. "I'm
      Madeleine Thomson -- Maddy, on the set. I'm pleased to meet you."
      I don't take her hand. I don't smile or speak. I square my shoulders. I
      look her in the face, glance down at her helmet, glance at the top of her
      head, and look her in the face again. I make a low throat-clearing noise,
      and Willie growls.
      After a pause, the woman blinks, sighs, detaches the helmet and sets it on
      her head, practically covering her eyes. A size too big, at least;
      slackness in the quartermaster's office again. Then she salutes, and I
      salute in return. Hers is pretty sloppy -- head bobs sideways to meet the
      hand, forearm is at a definite angle, and she drops it a good second
      before I drop mine -- but I'm willing to make allowances, in the name of
      Anglo-American relations. Hell, I won't even bawl her out for the helmet.
      I'm a regular Cordell Goddamn Hull.
      "At ease, Miss Thomson," I tell her. "You may say hello to Willie, if you
      like."
      The little bastard is snuffling up to her feet and whining and wagging his
      whole behind. She gives me a dirty look and squats to rub the dog's neck,
      the tools on her belt rattling and jingling.
      "My mum has a bull terrier. Ugly little buggers, aren't they? This one's
      friendly, though. A British dog, General?"
      "Willie's an inheritance," I say. "His owner was a pilot."
      She keeps looking at the dog, though her chin moves as if she almost
      glanced up. "Didn't make it, eh? Well, I'm sorry for you, Willie." He
      wallows, ecstatic, as she scratches his belly with increasing violence.
      "But you've found someone else. That's the important thing." She pats his
      flank, stands, yanks a hammer from her belt, and begins to pound the tank
      gun back into place, words coming out through clenched teeth as she flails
      away. "That's what a lot of us will have to do before this war's over,
      Willie -- find someone else."
      I clear my throat. "Believe it or not, Miss Thomson, that helmet could
      save your life one day. Bombs could start falling on this base any time.
      Real bombs," I add, glancing at the slapped-together monstrosities all
      around. Before, there had been no bombs, but wouldn't do to let Thomson
      know that. Bad for discipline.
      "Things have been remarkably quiet thus far, General. I've had closer
      calls in Birmingham repertory."
      "That could change in moments, Miss -- I'm sorry, Miss Thomson, I don't
      know what to call you. I don't know your rank."
      "My title at Shepperton Studios," she says, delivering one last hammer
      blow, "is second-unit production coordinator." She steps back to study her
      handiwork. The gun is now visibly battered, but unbowed.
      I wave my crop. "But you're in charge of all the Shepperton people on this
      site?"
      She returns the hammer to her belt, hitching at her pants as she secures
      it. "All the carpenters, designers, painters, seamstresses -- yes,
      General, to the extent they can be commanded at all, I have that singular
      honor. And may I add, General -- " She folds her arms and glares. " --
      that despite the extraordinarily short notice, the dreary accommodations,
      the dearth of materials, the miserable weather, the inadequate blueprints,
      and the constant meddling memos from headquarters and from Intelligence,
      my people have done a bloody good job, for which they've received no
      official recognition whatsoever except the heel of your boot and the
      lifted leg of your, your, familiar, but I, for one, am quite proud of this
      -- what's the phrase, General? -- purple-pissing Limey Hooverville."
      Now this is new. Before, my Shepperton liaison during the winter of '43
      and '44 was a hangdog little Cockney fellow with less backbone than a
      Cornish pasty. I feel a ridiculous stab of optimism, a joy almost painful,
      like a bullet. I make myself scowl anyway. I slap my boot, once, with my
      riding crop. The woman stands a little straighter, slightly widens her
      eyes, but doesn't look away, and keeps glaring. I'll be damned. Maybe I
      can turn this sorry-ass assignment around.
      But then I feel a wave of weariness (even as I put my fists on my hips and
      hunch my shoulders and brace my legs, my prime chewing-out stance), and I
      think, you're no longer that young man in Mexico, Georgie. The changes, my
      God, they get harder and harder. Sicily was the last time I even bothered
      to try, and look how that turned out. So tired. So old.
      But still the boss of this goddamn outfit.
      "I'm not accustomed to being spoken to that way, Miss Thomson, by any
      American below the rank of colonel, or by any Brit below the rank of prime
      minister."
      Jaw a little tighter, she holds her ground. Damn. Lucky thing I'm not
      cheating on Beatrice anymore.
      After a pause, I add, "So I suppose I'll have to call you Colonel, at
      least. At ease, Colonel Thomson."
      I turn and kick another hole in the tank. The whole contraption shudders,
      but stays intact.
      "So far so good," I say, turning back to her and smiling for the first
      time. "I do commend you and your crew, Colonel, for making a damned good
      start on this thing. But we have a lot left to do, a hell of a lot. When's
      the tour?"
      She blinks. "The tour."
      "You are no doubt aware, Colonel, that I am here for a guided inspection
      tour of Fortitude headquarters."
      She looks at her watch. "And you are no doubt aware, General, that you
      were not expected until nine o'clock -- " She catches my glance. " -- Ah,
      bloody hell -- oh nine hundred hours tomorrow morning."
      "I'm impatient. But I am here, and I am at your disposal, Colonel, so
      please show me this magnificent deception of yours."
      She sighs, grins, shakes her head, plucks a large flashlight from that
      amazing belt -- could that be a holster? Must make a note of how that
      thing is put together. Tank crews could use something like that. "Well,"
      she says, "I suppose Agatha Christie won't solve the case while I'm away.
      Do you care for murder mysteries, general? Or do you get enough of killing
      on the job? This way. Down the column."
      Willie scampers ahead, sniffing at the painted treads. The tanks loom on
      either side, their bulks somehow more realistic in the darkness. I almost
      could convince myself -- no, no I couldn't, it's gone. Not now. The gravel
      beneath our boots is a good sound, a soldier's sound. Set a smart pace on
      gravel, and you sound like you're really going somewhere. Thomson sets a
      smart pace.
      "So," I say, "what do you think of the boys at headquarters?"
      Crunch, crunch.
      "Let me put it this way, General. On a film set, I wouldn't entrust them
      with a clapper board. The injuries could be frightful."
      "I don't allow officers to mince words with me, Colonel. You must speak
      freely and frankly."
      "General, they are ignoramuses."
      "I believe the phrase you're groping for, Colonel, is goddamn worthless
      ignoramuses, but you're definitely on the right track. Listen, Colonel --
      I'm not sure what you've been told or not told, but if I'm going to be
      even the figurehead in charge of this fake invasion, then that makes you
      one of my people, and I don't like for my people to be in the dark about
      their duties. Do you have any questions for me that the lords of St. James
      have not satisfied?"
      "I do, General." She stops and switches off the flashlight. All around us,
      in the absolute darkness, the base strains toward battle. In the pregnant
      silence I hear a crewman, his final inspection complete, shinnying out of
      a hatch and dropping to the ground -- or is it just a garter snake?
      "We are told that so far, the Germans seem to be taking the bait. They
      genuinely believe that East Anglia is a staging area for a great
      cross-Channel invasion, aimed at Calais and led by you. Is that true,
      General? Have my people helped convince the Nazis this absurd story is
      real?"
      Absurd -- let that pass. "You have, Colonel, you have." I hope she can't
      tell that my eyes are closed. The breeze carries the smell of cordite,
      boot polish, sweat. "You have indeed convinced the krauts. But now you
      have a harder job. Now you have to convince me."

      The tanks weren't moving, and so I had no choice but to find out why.
      "Goddamn it, what's the holdup back here?"
      Despairing that I ever would be heard over the artillery and the machine
      guns and the engines, I half-strode, half-slid down the pulverized sod of
      the hillside and regained my balance on the edge of the trench where the
      whole ragged tank column, Renaults and Schneiders alike, had come to a
      halt. As I stood there weaving, pistol in one hand and walking stick in
      the other, I heard my batman, Private Angelo, reach my side, gasping; a
      strong lad, but I could outrun him any day.
      Beneath me, several dozen infantrymen huddled in the ditch, arms over
      their heads. Their shovels lay every which way, like scattered kindling.
      As I stood there, aghast, a shell blew several feet from me, spewing a
      gout of mud that spattered down on us all. I didn't flinch. I had expected
      it.
      It was 10 a.m. on September 26, 1918, at the start of the Meuse-Argonne
      offensive. We were about 625 yards south of the village of Cheppy. If I
      acted as I had before, in about 45 minutes I would take a bullet in my
      left upper thigh, a life-threatening wound, and would lie suffering in a
      shell hole for two hours before being rescued; and so my Great War would
      end, and I'd be sent home to Beatrice for many years to come.
      I knew all this. And all morning, all week, all month, I had pondered what
      I might do differently to avoid this calamity. Giving up my tank command
      was out of the question; it would leave a greater scar on my career than
      any bullet. Ignoring this holdup in the column, too, was impossible; our
      men needed relief, and fast. No, I knew that I had played a crucial role
      at this location, at this time. How could I be elsewhere? I was an
      officer. I had to do my duty.
      Mouth dry at the thought of that oncoming bullet, I shook my head, raised
      my walking stick, and drummed on the steel plates of the nearest
      Schneider. "Let's get this column moving," I bellowed. "These tanks are
      needed up there in the field, not sitting in a goddamn ditch."
      The hatch flung open, and out leaned a greasy-faced soldier with a big
      chew inflating his cheek. "Colonel, if somebody don't dig us a path
      through this trench, we ain't going nowhere." Bullets stitched the side of
      the tank in a diagonal. "Jesus!" the tank man cried, and ducked inside.
      "We tried to dig 'em out, Colonel," one of the men in the trench called
      up, "but then the krauts got us pinned down."
      "Pinned down, shit. You don't see them shooting me, do you? Where are your
      officers?"
      "Dead, Colonel."
      "You've got a new one, then. Come on, boys," I yelled. I holstered my
      pistol and picked up a shovel, held it out. "The sooner we dig a path for
      these tanks, the sooner we all can get out of here."
      Slowly, the man who had spoken reached up and took the shovel from my
      hand, holding it as if it might explode.
      "Come on, goddamn it," I cried again, holding out another shovel. "Let's
      get a move on. You don't have to dig the Panama Canal." Just as a soldier
      reached for the shovel, a bullet hit the blade, knocking it out of my
      hand. The soldier drew back with a cry. "Never mind that," I said,
      grabbing another shovel from Angelo, who was stacking his arms with them.
      "A lucky shot, that's all. No Buffalo Bills over there. They haven't got
      our range yet."
      "Tell that to Phillips," the soldier said, snatching the new shovel from
      my hand. A dead man lay a few feet away, his eyes and mouth open, his arms
      still wrapped around his shovel. The soldier who had spoken glared at me
      and fell to, digging like a madman. Good. Bravery works, and honor, but so
      do spite, and hatred.
      "You'll all die like Phillips if we don't get this column moving," I said.
      By now Angelo was distributing shovels at a frantic pace; as I expected,
      the men were glad to have something to do, something other than panic. I
      stepped over to Phillips, tugged free his shovel, and offered it to a man
      beneath me, the last man to huddle against the trench wall, eyes wide.
      "Come on, son. Take the shovel. Finish what Phillips started."
      No reaction.
      "Take the shovel, goddamn it!"
      He gave his head two sideways jerks -- shaking it, I presume.
      "Take the shovel, you miserable son of a bitch, or by God I'll kill you
      myself," I cried, as I swung the shovel sideways, like a baseball bat, and
      slammed the side of his helmet. He howled and fell over, arms over his
      face. I raised the shovel high over my head, and he held out his hands and
      gibbered:
      "I'll do it! I'll do it! Just hand me the shovel, Colonel, I'll do it! I
      swear."
      "Good man," I said, and dropped the shovel into the dirt at his feet. I
      turned away, faced the reassuring geometries of the tank column, watched
      the bullets ricocheting off their iron flanks. Rotten coward. Would I have
      killed him? Didn't matter; the decision hadn't been necessary. He had done
      his duty. But what of my duty?
      "Get these wagons ready to move!" I shouted, rapping on the side of each
      tank as I strode past. I rapped harder and harder as I went, shouted
      louder and louder, tried to clear my mind so that, when necessary, I could
      act without thinking, act like a soldier.
      When the column started moving again, Private Angelo and I had an awful
      time ordering the infantrymen to march alongside. They knew the tanks
      would draw all sorts of enemy fire, including artillery.
      "Sitting ducks, hell! That's what you'll be if you stay here. Not only are
      these tanks going to clean out those kraut nests that are picking you off,
      but these tanks are, furthermore, your only real cover, and as you can see
      -- " I waved my stick at the Renault rumbling past. " -- that cover is on
      the move. So let's get going, and I mean now! Fall in! Follow me!"
      So many back-of-the-line command-post generals never realize that on the
      battlefield, the most effective order is "Follow me!" Those ashen-faced
      troops put their heads down, shouldered their shovels, and trudged along
      behind me, hoping against hope I knew what I was doing.
      Before, that hope had been sorely misplaced. We had been marching to the
      left of the column, and had been cut to pieces by machine-gun fire. But
      staying in that damn trench, in the middle of hostile territory, was just
      not an option. So this time I led the men to the right of the column, and
      hoped that even if I weren't spared, this time at least most of them would
      be.
      As soon as we set off, I felt a new anxiety clutching me, not fear,
      exactly -- no, that had been with me for weeks, and was still there, and
      growing, and I hated it -- but a sort of fresh overlay of nausea, of
      uneasiness, a feeling not that something bad was going to happen but that
      everything was already bad, and I just didn't realize it, though at any
      moment I might, and then choke on the newfound ugliness of the world. I
      was attempting to change the day's outcome, of course. But I hadn't felt
      this way in Mexico, or in the months since, despite occasional ...
      adjustments. What was different? I picked my way more carefully through
      the sucking soil of the battlefield. There was an ache in my joints, a
      seemingly sourceless pang like the one in the jaw that steals up on you,
      gradually pulses the news that while asleep you've been grinding your
      teeth.
      We walked. How much time had elapsed? Two minutes? Three? How much time
      did I have left? Up ahead, one of the Schneiders met a 150-millimeter
      shell and blew up with a sound like a rifle-shot pumpkin. Flaming shards
      twinkled down on us, and the heat seared my face. But we kept walking, and
      the column kept rolling forward, detouring around the flaming wreck --
      that tight turning radius was serving us well today -- rumbling ahead,
      guns firing, bullets pinging off the sides and whining past.
      Each time I glanced around, Private Angelo and the others were still in
      line, though each time the line was a man or two fewer; and so I soon
      stopped glancing around. I tried to refocus my thoughts enough to be proud
      of those tank boys. I remembered my final orders to them:
      Remember that you are the first American tanks. You must establish the
      fact that AMERICAN TANKS DO NOT SURRENDER. As long as one tank is able to
      move it must go forward. Its presence will save the lives of hundreds of
      infantry and kill many Germans.
      Surely I should have been shot by now. Had I changed my destiny? Merely by
      walking on the right rather than the left? Was war that meaningless? I
      refused to accept it. Suddenly I knew: I was going to be shot, no matter
      what I did. But when?
      "Strange clouds, Colonel," Private Angelo said. I looked up into that
      roiling brown sea of dust, smoke, and gas that for days had been our sky
      and saw ranks upon ranks of soldiers, their shapes outlined like those of
      men standing a distance away in fog, their faces indistinct and
      unreadable. Yet I knew who they were. They were my ancestors. They were my
      grandfather, my granduncle, and all the soldiers in our line, and all the
      soldiers who, at one time, I had enjoyed the honor of being.
      They had looked down on me that other Sept. 26, moments before I was shot,
      and they had given me a feeling of great satisfaction, a certainty that I
      was doing as they would have done, and that whatever happened, I was a
      true soldier, a man, a Patton. But now, looking up at those ghostly ranks,
      I felt only a tautness in my gut, a parched mouth, and shame.
      "Angelo," I barked.
      "Sir?"
      "Maintain the march." Without looking behind, I darted between two of the
      tanks, emerged on the left side of the column. Head down and pistols
      drawn, I sprinted alongside, outrunning the tanks, teeth bared, looking
      only at the soupy, pockmarked, bone-and-metal-glinting mud beneath my
      feet, refusing to look into the sky again until -- and then came the
      bullet like a fist to my left leg, and though I staggered on another forty
      feet I knew I was down. I managed to holster both pistols before my
      wounded leg planted itself in the mud like a post and jerked me to a stop,
      forcing me to pivot and topple in a slow spiral until I was face down in
      the flesh-smelling sludge. No pain, not yet, not in the leg. I heaved
      myself onto my back, spat dirt, and glared at the empty khaki sky.
      "Hatred works, too," I said, and blacked out.
      I came to just as a long white bone, a femur I think, moved past my eyes,
      followed by a canteen, several rocks, a mound of something rotten, and a
      brick-colored puddle that was rushing to refill itself, having just been
      disturbed by something, perhaps a foot. I couldn't breathe. I was upside
      down, bent double. Someone was carrying me on his shoulder. Then I
      remembered.
      "Angelo," I said.
      "Almost there, Colonel," he said. Still no pain, though I could feel
      nothing, move nothing, could barely lift my head. Now I was looking into a
      big shell hole, maybe ten feet across and five feet deep, and the bottom
      of it was rising to meet me. Then I saw the damnable sky again, and Angelo
      was laying me down at the foot of the hole, trying to straighten me as
      best he could, which wasn't very straight. When he quit fussing, I was
      half sitting up like a sultan taking his ease, the back of my head
      pillowed by a tuft of needle grass.
      "The tanks," I said.
      "Still moving," he said.
      I coughed. "The men."
      He looked away. "Sit tight, Colonel," he said. "Once the tanks have shut
      off those machine guns, they'll be back for us."
      He meant, they're all dead. "Not back," I said. "Forward." Then I blacked
      out again.
      When next I awoke, the first person I saw, standing atop the thrown-up
      dirt at the lip of the hole, wearing his awful plaid weekend jacket over
      his slate-colored courthouse uniform of vest and baggy trousers, was my
      father, who was transparent but aglow within, like a reconnaissance
      balloon. Papa was looking into the hole with a slight frown, vexed, as if
      he'd mislaid his glasses again. He loomed over Private Angelo, who lay on
      his belly and sighted along his rifle into the smoke.
      I expected Papa to start patting his pockets. Instead he saw me, smiled,
      and punched the air with his walking stick by way of greeting. "Tell me
      something, Georgie," he called. As he headed my way, he stepped on Private
      Angelo's back; his foot just seeped in, then reappeared, whole. As Papa
      stepped into the pit he darkened considerably, and I saw his inward glow
      had merely been a flare guttering down the sky, briefly visible through
      his chest. "I'm curious. And think it over carefully before you answer."
      Having reached the bottom, he sat on nothing and leaned back with his
      fingers together, as he always did at his desk in the study at Lake
      Vineyard. "Do you ever -- how shall I put it? I want to speak precisely,
      now. See people who aren't there? Images from the past, or of the future?"
      He leaned over to where his desk drawer would be, pulled on it, made
      familiar motions with his empty hands. "Drink, Georgie? No, of course not.
      Ah." He smacked his pale lips. "There's profit in grapes, but more
      character in grain. Visions, Georgie. There, I said it. Fine Episcopalian
      I am, eh, to be talking about visions. Do you believe in visions,
Georgie?"
      "Paralyzed" isn't the term; rather, I felt as if I had nothing left to
      move. I sensed, rather than felt, my life ebbing away through my wound,
      somewhere out of sight but vital, as a child senses his parents' despair.
      Yet I seriously considered Papa's question, even as I watched through his
      vest a rat that clawed out of the dirt, looked around, then scrambled back
      out of sight, long tail whipping about beneath Papa's watch fob. I felt I
      had been given a trick question, the kind that tormented me at West Point.
      Papa kept rocking back and forth, but without the comforting squeal of his
      chair. I missed it. I missed him. Sixteen months since I had waved to him
      on the dock from the Governor's Island ferry. Finally I said: "I believe
      in you, Papa."
      He chuckled, nodded. A mortar exploded nearby. "Jesus!" cried Angelo, and
      clods rained down as Papa said: "Good answer, Georgie. But do you know, I
      never had visions myself. Never. Not even as a child, after the war, when
      I almost died with the typhoid. All I could envision then was the pitcher
      of water across the room, and that was certainly real, because I crawled
      across the floor and pulled it over on top of myself, didn't I?" He
      chuckled and rubbed the palms of his hands along his thighs, patted his
      knees.
      Private Angelo slid down the crumbling slope on top of Papa, then crawled
      through him and leaned over me, examining my eyes and face.
      "Now, other people in the family have seen them," Papa said. "You know
      that, don't you?"
      "Yes, Papa," I said.
      "Sorry, Colonel," Angelo said. "Can't understand a word you're saying.
      Follow my finger with your eyes, Colonel. OK? Please, Colonel."
      "Why, Georgie, your step-grandfather, Colonel Smith, told me that once as
      he was walking through a hotel lobby in Sacramento, he heard a dance in
      progress behind a closed door, and was drawn to open the door and look in
      -- curiously drawn, he said, because he was not a prying man, as you know,
      Georgie. He was the very figure of a Virginia gentleman, was your
      step-grandfather."
      "Shit," Angelo said, wiped his mouth, and scrambled back up the slope,
      kicking through Papa's head as he went.
      "And he found that ballroom filled, Georgie, with officers in Confederate
      uniform, and their women and servants, all in the dress of a generation
      before." Papa again made familiar motions, drank the air. "Excuse me," he
      said, covering his mouth and puffing his cheeks. "And the Colonel found
      himself in the middle of the room, and everyone had fallen silent, even
      the musicians, and one of the violinists -- the Colonel would never forget
      this -- was scratching his nose with a bow. What a thing for him to
      notice, Georgie, in the circumstances!" A splatter of guns and some
      not-so-distant shouts briefly drowned his voice as he examined his string
      tie. " -- stood there as each of the officers in the room passed before
      him in silence, single file, to bow and shake his hand and look him in the
      face, and he recognized each man in turn as a man who had served under him
      in the Shenandoah, and died there. Died there, Georgie."
      "Hail Mary, full of grace," said Angelo, from the edge of the pit.
      "But he wasn't afraid, Georgie. And when he came to himself, why, he was
      out in the lobby again, leaning against a wall and staring into a
      spittoon. A colored man asked him if the Colonel was all right. 'All
      right?' he replied. 'Why, this is the most honored day of my life.'" Papa
      chuckled and hitched up his trouser legs as he rocked backward and rubbed
      the side of his face, no doubt because the sun was high and hot through
      the study window that looked out onto the vineyards. No doubt Papa soon
      would reach up and pull the shade. "Now, you don't have to tell me a
      thing, Georgie, you never did," he continued, "but I've seen a certain
      look on your face many a time. Do you remember how Polvo used to jump up
      from the rug and look at something that wasn't there, and growl? That's
      the look I mean, Georgie, only you don't growl."
      Private Angelo suddenly was at my side again, this time muttering and
      fussing with my leg, I suppose, though I saw only the top of his helmet
      and his mud-encrusted shoulders moving. I could look only at Papa. Angelo
      straightened, ripping a long strip of white fabric from a roll, then
      ducked again, muttering."Jesus God. Hold on, Colonel. This'll be over in a
      sec."
      "Just look at me, Papa." I tried to laugh. Angelo reached up to my face
      and daubed at my lips with a handkerchief. "Look at me. Lying helpless in
      the goddamn mud."
      Papa stiffened, brought his invisible chair back down to all fours with a
      thunk I could almost hear. "No public man uses coarse speech, Georgie."
      I flushed -- the first sensation I had felt since the shot, hot and full
      in the face. "No, sir."
      "Helpless," Papa said, and looked away from me. Crawling through him,
      Private Angelo knelt at what might have been the corner of the study,
      tugged at his pants, and began to piss, spattering the dirt and himself.
      "Papa, I couldn't even walk to the foxhole! The private here had to carry
      -- " Papa looked back at me, stern. "Had to drag me," I finished.
      Angelo moved well away from his muddy pissoir and sat in the dirt, arms
      clasping his knees, chin resting on arms, staring at me.
      "Hold on, Colonel," Private Angelo whispered.
      "Papa," I said. "Papa, I've been here before."
      His eyes narrowed, and he leaned forward. "What's that, Georgie?"
      "Here, in this shell hole. Years before. I'm doing it all over again,
      Papa, everything. I don't know whether it's my will or God's will or fate,
      but -- I've got another chance, Papa."
      "Another chance," Papa said, rubbing his chin and looking up, toward the
      east. His face flickered with reflected gunfire.
      Private Angelo rubbed his face and muttered, "Christ Almighty, I bet
      they're ice fishing at home."
      "You know, I was almost a soldier once, Georgie ... more than thirty years
      ago."
      "You were a soldier, Papa. You commanded 'A' Company at VMI. You led the
      cadets in Philadelphia, at the centennial parade."
      Now Papa and Angelo talked at once, only not quite. They paused between
      sentences, and overlapped their speeches only slightly, so that the effect
      was of two impatient, self-centered people having a conversation, or of
      one person speaking and the next person, translating. Papa was a trained
      public speaker, and was telling a story long familiar to both of us, but
      Angelo was halting, less sure, speaking mostly to himself.
      "Parades. That's not soldiering, son. Before you were born, before I met
      your mother, I signed up to join the Hicks Expedition, to fight in the
      Sudan against the Mahdi."
      "You know what everybody in the unit says about you, Colonel? I'll tell
      you. We think you're the all-time eternal brass-plated bastard from hell."
      "I read in the papers they were recruiting in Los Angeles, and during a
      recess in yet another interminable civil case I told my second to resume
      without me if I was delayed, and I trotted downstairs and ran down the
      street, coattails flying, to the hotel listed in the ad."
      "But you know what else we say about you, Colonel? We tell all the other
      guys that you're our bastard, and furthermore we all think you're a damn
      good soldier."
      "The recruiters had a suite with a potted date palm in the middle of the
      floor. 'Didn't know the dashed things grew here naturally,' the sergeant
      said. He had one leg, and a chipped front tooth. 'Might have saved some
      money on the passage, what, if we'd left that bastard in Cairo.' I laughed
      and shook everyone's hand. They called me pasha Patton, which is a title
      of great respect in Egypt, you know."
      "You ain't gonna die this way, Colonel. Not if we can help it. Not if I
      can help it."
      "Oh, I signed my name to everything, I did. When I came home that evening
      the family met me at the door, saying Mama had fallen again, and before I
      hung up my hat and cane I knew that I would never go."
      "I ain't leaving you, Colonel. I'll wait on our boys, or the Germans,
      whichever comes first."
      "At Kashgil, that November, Hicks was ambushed, and the expedition was
      wiped out very nearly to the last man. I read the news on the streetcar,
      headed for yet another victory dinner for President Cleveland."
      I coughed. "That was good luck, wasn't it, Papa?"
      "Don't try to talk, Colonel. Want some water?"
      "Yes, they were lucky, son. They died like your grandfather, and your
      granduncle. They died like men."
      "Here you go, Colonel. Have a drink. That's right."
      I spluttered. "No, Papa. I mean, it was good luck for me. Papa -- what if
      you had died?"
      "Hm? Oh, of course, Georgie, of course you're right. I have no regrets.
      I've been blessed with a wonderful family, Georgie, and a wonderful son. A
      son who's making the most of his big chance." He leaned forward and patted
      my leg, and I felt pain such as I had never known. I screamed.
      "Christ! Colonel, shut up, sir," Private Angelo said, lunging toward me.
      My father was getting up, patting his pockets, preparing to leave. "Papa!"
      I cried. "Papa!"
      "Geez, he wants his old man now. Listen, Colonel," Private Angelo
      whispered into my ear, "you've gotta hold out just a while longer, and lay
      low and be quiet, you got me? We ain't got a hell of a lot of friends in
      this neighborhood, you know?"
      "Papa," I said, my leg throbbing, my forehead sizzling. Papa was making
      his way over the lip of the hole, rubbing the small of his back. He looked
      back at me as Angelo upended his canteen over my face, blurring the
      slope-shouldered outline of the only Patton I had ever known.
      I heard Papa's voice: "Another chance. Imagine that. Well, Georgie, maybe
      that's true for you. I hope it is. I hope it is true for one of us ... "
      His last words were swallowed by the spitting rumbling grind of tank
      engines, and by the shouts of what sounded like a thousand men.
      "We're done for, Colonel," Private Angelo said, still swabbing my face.
      Up on the crest behind him, where Papa had stood a moment before, was a
      tall, gangling, sunken-cheeked soldier through whom I could see nothing.
      He turned, cupped his mouth, and called, "Criminy, Sarge! There's someone
      alive down here!"
      I later found out he was one of a hundred troops of the 138th Regiment of
      the 35th Division, who had arrived on the scene a good ninety minutes
      faster than I had expected. The German resistance just seemed to melt
      away, they said. Good thing, too: My wound turned out to be even more
      serious than before; I wouldn't have lasted another half hour. My father
      would write to tell me that very day he had been curiously restless, kept
      pacing his study, knew something was terribly wrong. But all I knew as I
      lost consciousness was Private Angelo's tearful, grimy face. The details
      of my deliverance came to me later; their implications, later still.

      Chaos, as before. Bugles. Police whistles. A haze of gas. A rain of
      garbage from office windows. Rearing horses. Hundreds of people in the
      middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, slowing our advance -- running across our
      path, or clutching at our reins and stirrups, or just standing there
      dazed. Some were Bonus, I was sure, but which? Screams and curses. A lunch
      pail bounced off the pavement once, twice, and tumbled away, spraying
      scraps. Up ahead, through the cherry trees, I could see the Capitol
      getting blessedly nearer. One of the trees swayed and fell, and a tank
      trundled into view, lurching upward as it rolled over something.
      I long had dreaded my return to July 28, 1932. But now that it was here I
      was going to do just what I did before, by God: my duty. And, later,
      something more.
      Ahead was a streetwide melee, as the infantry steadily pushed the front
      line of Bonus marchers back toward the Anacostia Bridge. It was no rout,
      though. These were American vets, all right; they scratched and struggled
      and threw punches and wrestled the whole way down Pennsylvania. I heard no
      shots except the thumps of the gas canisters, but I saw plenty of
      doughboys using the butts of their rifles. No bayonets in use, not that I
      could see, not yet.
      A pack of a dozen Bonus boys, all in uniform, ran toward me. Somehow they
      had made it past the infantry. Some had bloody faces. Two were waving
      shovels, and one a crooked umbrella. They looked wild-eyed, crazy. I
      whistled to the riders on my left and right and we charged. The veterans
      wheeled so fast they skidded, stumbled, then ran back the way they had
      come, cursing us the whole way. We swept them along with the flats of our
      sabers. I gave one straggler a good smack in the pants, and he yelled,
      "I'm going, General! I'm going! Don't hit me!"
      General. Promoted by a goddamned Bonus marcher. I slowed to a trot and
      stared down the crowd lining the sidewalk. What shocked, snarling, hateful
      looks, what howls and oaths -- as if I were the Lindbergh kidnapper, or
      Scarface Al. And from Americans! Watching American troops do their duty,
      sweeping an organized Bolshevik occupation force out of Washington! I was
      glad to wield the broom -- as glad the second time as the first.
      A rock, I suppose, struck my helmet, knocked it sideways; I righted it
      immediately, and kneed my horse forward. Ahead, a stray cloud of gas made
      a hotel awning bulge upward. From beneath it a man in uniform stumbled
      into the street, holding his throat: a goddamn doorman. A horse reared;
      its rider yelled: "Out of the way, sir! Out of the way, please!" The
      doorman staggered to the sidewalk, clawing at his epaulets. Two fat men in
      business suits grabbed him, hauled him through a revolving door, glared
      back at me.
      The gas was dissipating quickly in this windy canyon, yet my eyes were
      streaming. I touched the mask hanging from my saddle, tapped its goggles,
      decided against it. Some officers, I knew, had donned their masks before
      they were a block from Fort Myer.
      Above me, looking down from the office windows, a hundred anguished faces
      in a row. "Shame!" cried a woman's voice. "Shame!" I selected a woman in a
      wide white hat, saluted her, and rode on.
      Coming down a side street toward Pennsylvania was a lone tank, an old
      Renault. Hadn't that idiot been issued a map? A gang of boys in knickers
      chased the tank, hanging all over it, throwing round projectiles that
      splattered off the plate. Apples. Still in service after fourteen years --
      amazing.
      Much later, after the charge across the bridge, after the clearing of the
      Flats, after the fire that swept "Hooverville" into ash, after it all was
      left to the newspapers and the politicians, I was standing, as before,
      talking to several of my fellow regimental officers at the picket lines,
      when I heard the footsteps on the sidewalk behind me: two men marching
      smartly, one man shuffling. Once again, without turning, I knew who he
was.
      In the wards, after Cheppy, I had talked to boys who were bayoneted. They
      described what it was like. I had begun to feel something similar whenever
      I thought of Private Joe Angelo.
      I turned to face him. He was the same. His face and uniform were filthy,
      matted with grass and mud and flecked with -- blood? Had he been dragged?
      The Distinguished Service Cross was in place, though. Crooked, but there.
      Runnels of sweat, or tears, had smoothed the dirt on his cheeks. I
      couldn't meet his gaze, God help me, not yet. Never noticed before how
      bowlegged he was, I'll be damned; in Virginia they'd say you could throw a
      hog through his legs.
      "Major Patton," said the sergeant at his right elbow, "this one says he
      knows you, won't come quietly until he speaks with you -- begging your
      pardon, sir," he added, misreading my expression.
      Before, my shame had turned to embarrassment and anger. I had snorted:
      "Sergeant, I do not know this man. Take him away, and under no
      circumstances permit him to return!"
      And then I had turned my back on Joe Angelo, who did not speak, and who
      went so quietly that I heard nothing as I stood there chatting with my
      fellow Cavalry officers about what a sad spectacle it was, a damn good
      enlisted man gone to rack and ruin, hat in hand with the Bolsheviks, each
      word welling up like acid in my throat.
      Not this time. But the hell of it was, as I stood there, looking at Joe
      Angelo again, knowing this was my second, perhaps last, chance, I felt
      those very same words roiling out; I very nearly said them. "Sergeant -- I
      mean, I -- " I had to clench my jaw, get hold of myself (discipline or
      death, Georgie, discipline or death), force myself instead to say the
      words I had practiced so bitterly, so often.
      "I do know this man, Sergeant." Damn my throat; I was barking like Willie,
      Willie who wasn't even born. "This man is Joe Angelo. Fourteen years ago,
      Sergeant, in a hole in the ground near a pissant crossroads in France, Joe
      Angelo saved the life of a cowboy lieutenant colonel who let himself get
      shot in the ass while daydreaming." I twitched a smile, and forced myself
      to look at him. I hoped it was a smile. "Hello, Joe. I'm sorry we're on
      opposite sides today."
      I sounded like a Latin-school brat quavering his way through "The boy
      stood on the burning deck." I could not read the expression on Angelo's
      face. I had to go on, quickly, before I lost the energy, before the other
      words took over. "And Joe, while I don't agree with your methods out here
      -- all this agitating and public disturbance and socialism and all -- I
      want you to know that, well, if there's anything Beatrice and I and our
      family can do to help you out, and your family, then Joe, you only have to
      say the word. I don't hold with handouts, but that, Joe, that wouldn't be
      a handout, that would be -- I'd say that would be something like justice.
      And I'd be proud to do it. We'd be proud to do it. I hope you believe
      that, Joe." The Capitol seesawed. I fought to stand upright.
      Joe swallowed once, twice. Damn, he had to be scrawnier than at Cheppy,
      else how the hell could he have carried me even a foot? Sawed-off little
      bowlegged runt?
      "I do believe it, Colonel." He sounded raspy, too. He cleared his throat,
      laughed a little. "I surely do."
      I was aware of the officers behind me, staring at my back the same way the
      smug bastards used to stare at me at West Point, when I gave the whole
      parade ground holy hell while they stood behind me and disapproved, with
      their thin lips and their narrow eyes, but had nothing to say. To my face,
      disapproval is nothing, it's dust, it's lint, it's the prick of a cactus,
      but from behind it's a strong enemy hand pushing, pushing. The hell with
      West Point; the hell with them. But the words were harder and harder to
      say. I thought I was going to choke, or vomit.
      "Can't call me Colonel anymore, Joe," I spat out. "I'm a major, now. Got
      busted down after the Armistice. Too many officers." I glanced sideways.
      "More than any sane army needed."
      He flashed a smile that did not reach his eyes. "Yeah, peace is hard on
      everybody, huh, Colonel?"
      "Oh sweet goddamn, that's true," I said. "Yes sweet Jesus yes."
      "Uh, Major, the truck is waiting -- "
      "I just wanted to see you, Colonel." Joe took a deep breath. "I just
      wanted to have a good look at you. I wanted ... I just wanted ... "
      He seemed to be having trouble finding words, too. I held out my hand.
      Would it feel clammy to him? "I'm glad you found me, Joe."
      He took my hand, held it limply for a second, then let it go. "Colonel, I
      -- "
      "Please, come see us in Fort Myer, have dinner with us. Bring your family.
      If they're home in -- New Jersey? I thought so -- we'll bring them in,
      too, on the train."
      "Colonel, I want to say -- "
      "Take care, Joe."
      "Don't worry about me, Colonel. Shit!" He flinched from the sergeant's
      hand on his shoulder. "Wait a minute. Hey, Colonel. How about this? I got
      an idea, see. What do you think of this idea, huh?" As he kept shrugging
      off the increasingly insistent guards, tried to wriggle away, he did a
      sort of shimmy dance, keeping his gaze on me, and talking more quickly, as
      if energized. "When I get out of jail, because I guess I will get out,
      right? One day. Well, when I do, I'll go on back to New Jersey, back to my
      wife and my kids, no job or nothing, no pension or nothing, empty-handed,
      just good old Joe, good old Dad with nothing in his pockets as usual, that
      is if they're still there, oh Jesus," and his voice broke, "if they're
      still there waiting on me, waiting on fucking nothing, and then maybe
      we'll all get together, the Angelos and the Pattons, for a nice little
      dinner, maybe with caviar and crackers and, and, hell, what do rich people
      eat? Fucking finger sandwiches, but in the meantime, Colonel -- let go of
      me, you fathead son of a bitch -- in the meantime, Colonel, do you know
      what you can do? Huh? You can go straight to hell! How about that?"
      I couldn't speak. I couldn't move. I stood there watching the two
      sergeants, enraged now, haul Joe Angelo away.
      "That a fair deal, Colonel? Huh? That a fair goddamn deal?" He yanked a
      hand free, ripped off his medal, and flung it at me. It bounced off my
      chest, I suppose. I didn't feel it, but I heard it plink against a button,
      and then the pavement. "Let go of me. I said I'm going, goddamn you! For
      God's sake! Can't a man walk?"
      Muscles taut and aching, forearm barely able to bear the weight, I
      saluted. I held it after the little man was invisible in the crowd, for as
      long as I could distinguish the sergeants' helmets bobbing. Only when they
      were two bubbles among hundreds did I drop my trembling hand, and then
      slowly.
      I turned back to the officers and croaked, "If you'll excuse me,
      gentlemen."
      They broached goodbyes as I walked away, concentrating: shoulders back,
      left foot, right foot, left. Alongside the walkway was a waist-high rail,
      flowering shrubs on the other side. Hydrangeas? I gripped the rail for
      support as I walked, hauling myself along left-handed. I heard murmurs
      behind me, something about "the Old Man." Old Man to my soldiers in Mexico
      at thirty, now Old Man at forty-six, and thirteen years to go -- No!
      Mustn't think about that. Tendrils of gas seeped out from the shrubs,
      through the railing, curled around my ankles, made my eyes tear up. I had
      to say the words, I had to. My throat was on fire. I whispered, fast and
      desperate, mouth foamy dry. "Sergeant, I do not know this man. Take him
      away. Take him away, Sergeant, I do not know this man." I passed a flaming
      barrel. A doughboy fed it leaflets, snatched them one by one from a
      crumpled bundle beneath his arm.
      VOTE THE BONUS
      BONUSES NOW
      BONUS OR A JOB
      The doughboy gave me a queer look. The heat licked my face. I clasped my
      forehead, forced myself to suck in air. Discipline, Georgie, discipline!
      Focus! Some changes would be easy, others, not. I knew that. Destiny is
      hard. Adjusting it is harder. Harder with every passing year. I knew that.
      I could live with that. Fair deal, Joe, fair deal. "Take him away!" I
      choked, and kicked free of the clutching gas.

      Leave a real Army camp at night, and you can watch it vanish in the
      rear-view mirror. Even under blackout conditions, there's always something
      to see. But when I say goodbye to Thomson, and Mims wheels the Mercedes
      along the gravel turnaround, and Willie scrambles, whining, into my lap, I
      glance up and I see nothing in the mirror but blackness. Turn your back on
      it, and all of Fortitude disappears, buildings and tanks and personnel and
      Thomson too. If only I could forget as easily.
      It's a long drive back to Peover (who but the Brits would give a town a
      name like that?), and I don't sleep as well on the road as I used to.
      That's an understatement. I don't sleep well anywhere anymore. The closer
      I get to that left-turning truck in Germany ... but no matter. As Willie
      snores in my lap, sides heaving beneath my crossed forearms, I open my old
      notebook from Mexico and look at all the items I've crossed off, just to
      reassure myself that this second life was worth living, that I might avoid
      that truck yet. My eye lights on the name
      DICK JENSON
      and I grin. That's one achievement, surely. On April 1, 1943, a Junker
      squadron dropped several bellyfuls of five hundred-pounders on the First
      Armored command post in the Wadi Akarit, north of Ei Hamma. I had been
      expecting the attack, of course, and I had taken steps to prevent the only
      casualty. Before, everyone made it to the foxholes OK, but one of the
      holes suffered a hit -- the one that contained only one man, my young
      aide, Dick Jenson, whom I had sent out there, God help me, for some
      front-line experience. Not again. I made sure Dick was with me all that
      day, behind the lines, and so I never had to write Dick's mother that
      letter, and instead of someone else getting killed in Dick's place (which
      I had half-expected but accepted as a necessary risk), the Junkers didn't
      do any harm other than rearranging Colonel Benson's furniture, which I'm
      sure needed it anyway, and giving that nattering old woman Omar Bradley a
      lingering earache, which is a kind of justice, if you ask me.
      Got a card from Dick just the other day. He's quite the hero back home,
      his wife's sulking because all the girls want to dance with him, leg brace
      or no. Four days after the Junker attack, Dick stepped on a mine outside
      Sidi-Bou-Zid -- well, actually, the poor bastard to his left stepped on
      it. We thought that stretch of road had been swept clear, but, what the
      hell, can't predict everything.
      Feeling a bit better, I close my notebook, settle back, and peer out the
      window, where a white stone wall has been twisting alongside for what
      seems like an awful long time.

      Mount Etna was hazy in the distance Aug. 10, 1943, when we skidded to a
      stop along a muddy ditch outside the 93rd Evacuation Hospital. Why hadn't
      I just let Sergeant Mims drive past? Had I even intended to call halt, or
      had it just -- happened? I still didn't have to go in. But the very
      thought of ordering Mims forward made me feel faint, abruptly feverish. I
      suppressed a gasp, dug the fingernails of my left hand into the palm of my
      right until the landscape stopped shimmering.
      Changing my future had become so difficult, so painful, I had almost given
      it up. But today I had to do something. I had to.
      It was a breezy day, and the three-star pennants fluttered nicely even
      when the jeep was standing still. Someone must have seen them and alerted
      the receiving officer, a major, who came running, white coat flapping,
      while I still was in the jeep dithering and taking in the view and feeling
      grateful that I could regain my strength sitting down.
      "Yes, General, yes, delighted to have you look around, visit with the men,
      a great morale-booster, we're very honored ... "
      Before I followed him in, feeling better but still a little shaky, I
      looked back at the old volcano and thought, Mims, better you should have
      driven me to the edge of the crater and over the side.
      "You'll have to duck your head here, I'm afraid, General. That's right.
      Attention!"
      Ah, hell. If I had let Mims drive on by, I'd have been running away from a
      fight, wouldn't I? And who's to say I wouldn't have run into the same
      goddamned malingerer, ten miles down the road? No, much better to face my
      future, and stand up to it.
      Sicily might have been cleaned free of krauts all the way to Messina, but
      as I walked through those canvas wards, chatting and smiling and patting
      boys on the shoulder, I was as tense as I had been during the invasion. As
      if I were braced for one of the patients to lift a pistol and shoot me
      where I stood. Goddamn fear! Goddamn nerves!
      "How are you feeling, soldier?"
      "I'm all right, General. Don't you worry about me."
      "Oh, I'm not worried about you, soldier. I'll let the goddamned Huns worry
      about you, when you're back on your feet again with a gun in your hand.
      Right?"
      "That's right. You tell 'em, General."
      More differences. Before, there had been a soldier with staring eyes, his
      face badly burned, who lay on his belly in a cot and kept moving his arms
      and legs as if crawling. "Poor soul kept that up all night," the nurse had
      said. But now I didn't see the wretch anywhere.
      "What happened to you, son?"
      "Hell, General, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, that's
      all. The docs are fixing me up, though. I'll be back out there with you
      soon."
      "I'm glad for that, son. You're a fine soldier, and you and I have a lot
      of killing left to do. You ready for that?"
      "You say the word, General!"
      "God bless you, soldier."
      Others were where I expected them. Here was the poor bastard with his head
      half blown off, who couldn't talk but who reached out to shake my hand and
      then gave me a thumbs-up sign. Here was the nurse who gave me her pan and
      washcloth and let me bathe an unconscious man's fevered forehead. "When he
      comes to, he's never gonna believe it," she kept saying. "Never in a
      million billion years." Here was the big nigger comedian, bandaged head to
      foot, who made us all laugh when he said, "Hey General -- You oughtta see
      the other guy."
      "God, I love my army!" I said, and those who could cheered.
      When I entered the last ward, by now at the head of a little jostling
      procession of doctors and nurses, I immediately looked to the bunk where I
      knew the yellow bastard would be. He wasn't there.
      Could it be? Would I be spared?
      "Where you from, soldier?"
      "South Carolina, sir."
      "South Carolina, eh? You know, I met a soldier the other day from South
      Carolina, and he said a Southern boy could shoot even better than he could
      screw. Do you agree with that, soldier?"
      "I'll let you know, General. I need to do a little more shootin'."
      "You do that, soldier. You do that." Laughing with the rest, I turned to
      the cot across the aisle.
      And there he was.
      Different cot, different place in the ward. Otherwise the same.
      As before, he wasn't a small man. Not scrawny and weak-looking at all.
      Big, hearty fellow. Standing, he'd have been my height. He sat on the edge
      of a cot, feet on the floor. His hands clenched his knees. No bandages, no
      hospital dress at all. He was in full artilleryman's uniform, from helmet
      to boots, every inch regulation. Needed a shave, though. One dark eyebrow
      smeared across his forehead. His eyes were screwed shut, and his lower lip
      was sucked in. His body was as rigid as if sitting at the trigger,
      awaiting an order to fire.
      I thought of all I could avoid: the Drew Pearson broadcast, the headlines,
      the demands in Congress for a court-martial
      to curse and slap and physically attack a man in his hospital bed, my
      fellow Senators, is not the act of a general but the act of a coward
      the endless chewings-out from Ike
      a miserable coward
      and I told myself, let it go this time, Georgie, let it go. Just walk past
      him. Don't even look at him. That's right, Georgie. Just keep on walking.
      The bones in my knees and hips seemed to grind together. I bit my tongue
      to keep from crying out.
      I stopped. I turned to him. I fought to keep my voice low, controlled,
      polite. Polite!
      What did you do in the war, granddaddy?
      Kissed all the ass in Europe, honey, Yankee ass and Limey ass, brass ass
      and khaki ass, just like I was told.
      "What's your name, soldier? What's your unit?"
      His name was Paul G. Bennett. He was 21 years old. Private, First
      Battalion, Seventeenth Field Artillery Regiment. Hadn't my family sent me
      all the clippings, for Godsake? But as before, he told me nothing. He just
      sat there.
      I reached out -- gently! gently! I pictured Beatrice's neck at sixteen,
      the day of the Catalina picnic with the Pattons and the Ayers, the first
      photograph with both of us in it. That's how gently I reached out. My
      fingertips rested, trembling, on Bennett's shoulder; I almost stroked it.
      I gave him a push so small it was little more than a mental pulse down my
      arm from me to him. "Hello. Soldier? Can you hear me?"
      "Yes, sir," he quavered. His bottom lip, before it vanished again, was
      bloody.
      "That's a bad lip you got there, son. Is that why you're in here? That why
      you're in the hospital?"
      I just want to hear him admit it, I told myself. I just want to hear him
      say he's scared. I want the brave men around him to hear his yellow mouth.
      Hell, the papers said he had begged to stay with his unit, that his
      battery surgeon was the one who ordered him to pack it in, sent him to the
      medics. Why didn't he say that? He could if he wanted to. "Hell if I know
      why I'm here, sir," he could say. "Doc said I needed a checkup. I'll be
      back out there killing krauts before you know it, General." It'd be so
      damned easy. Hadn't he been listening to the others? Didn't he know what
      he was supposed to say?
      Bennett -- no, I wouldn't think of his name, he hadn't earned it yet --
      the yellow soldier opened his mouth, jaw dropping like a pin had been
      removed. It gaped open. I leaned closer. From the back of his throat a
      word was welling up, a slight sound like a distant scream or a rusty
      hinge. I stooped there, quivering, waiting.
      Beatrice wrote me once that when little Georgie was learning to talk, he'd
      get hung up on a word, and he'd stand there holding onto her deck chair,
      mouth open, trying to remember what the sound was, and she'd sit there in
      suspense trying to will him to say something, anything. I never knew what
      the hell she was talking about until that moment, trying to coax a word or
      two out of that yellow rat in Sicily. Different words. Even "Screw you,
      General" would have made me happy. Something -- anything!
      "It's my nerves," he said.
      The same goddamn thing all over again!
      "What?" I yelled. "What did you say?" Behind me a nurse gasped.
      "It's my nerves, General. I just can't stand the shelling anymore. I
      can't." Eyes still shut, he started to cry, with a low and maddening whine
      like Willie at the door, wanting to be let out. A noise fit for a dog.
      I knew what I
      goddamned coward
      wanted to say and needed to say
      yellow son of a bitch
      and had said before
      shut up that goddamned crying
      but I remembered the headlines, and the hate mail, and the packs of
      reporters pecking at my daughters' windows, and my orders from Ike's
      hatchetman to crawl
      disgrace to the Army
      on my belly to every last unit in the Seventh Army asking forgiveness
      back to the front, my man
      and then the months of doing nothing, and then finding out that my next
      "command"
      ought to be lined up against a wall and shot
      was to lead a non-existent army in a non-existent invasion -- and that
      only because the last person who still believed I could do the job in
      combat was Hitler.
      No. Not again. Shut up, Georgie.
      God damn you
      Just shut up.
      "I can't," the miserable rat whispered.
      I leaned forward farther, gently laid my hands on his shoulders, my mouth
      against his left ear. He flinched, the corner of his mouth jerked, but he
      didn't resist. His whiskers pricked my cheek. He was a smoker. The pain
      had returned, spasms in my back, my arms, my legs. Mother of mercy,
      Georgie, don't fall on the boy. Anything but that. So low that not even
      the man in the next cot could catch it, in a desperate rush to speak
      before my voice gave out, I breathed into his ear:
      "You worthless, Godless, pitiful, no-dicked bastard, in another lifetime I
      slapped the living shit out of you, you disgraceful excuse for a soldier.
      And I'd like to do it again, rather than let you sit here pissing on all
      these good brave men around you. This time, though, I'm going to walk away
      from you, the way I'd walk away from a turd I left hot in a ditch, and
      maybe my life will be the better for it. I don't know. But whatever
      happens to me, you wretched stinking traitor, I hope what you get is
      worse."
      I kissed his ear, let go of him and jerked to a standing position, wiped
      my mouth with the back of my hand. He sat there as before, still
      trembling, but not crying any more. As far as anyone else in the ward
      knew, I had spoken words of private encouragement -- and by God, I had!
      Sure I had. More than he deserved. I turned to go. A few inches' movement,
      but so, so hard. I felt the cords in my neck pull taut, resisting. The
      pain wasn't the worst of it. Turning my back on that soldier was like
      turning my back on myself.
      "I just can't," he murmured.
      Where the South Carolinian had been, lying in the bed in front of me, was
      my granduncle, Col. Walter Tazewell Patton, a bloody bandage over most of
      his head but his good eye shining. His Confederate grays were spattered
      with red and with orange clay. Sitting beside him in a canvas chair,
      likewise staring at me, was my gray-clad grandfather, George Smith Patton,
      bandaged hand on the hilt of his saber, splinted leg sticking into the
      aisle so that I'd have to step over it to reach the door. Across the
      aisle, with tubes feeding into his arm, lay a centurion, free hand
      drumming a pursuit rhythm against his breastplate, eyes intent on me
      beneath the crest of his legion. Beside him lay a huge man in a horned
      helmet, beard wild and matted around his strapped-on oxygen mask, his
      great chest rising and falling alarmingly but his face still and sure.
      All around the ward were men in chain mail, redcoats, bearskins, tricorne
      hats, all writhing or gasping or clutching their wounds, all staring at
      me. The nurses were gone. In the doorway where the doctor had stood was my
      father, in his suitcoat and plaid vest, his pants a bit baggy. He wore a
      stethoscope and held a clipboard under his arm. His lips were pursed, his
      eyeglasses low on his nose. It was the expression he used when withholding
      judgment.
      "Not again," I murmured. I closed my eyes and tried to restrain my
shudder.
      "General? General. Are you all right?"
      I opened my eyes. The doctor was back, and the nurses, and the other
      wounded men of the U.S. Seventh Army. They looked less real than the
      phantoms had been. They had less life in them, even the ones who weren't
      wounded. They were frozen like a medical-school tableau, a closed-down
      waxwork, waiting on me to do something to get their lives, the war,
      history, moving again.
      I felt nearer death than any of them.
      Behind me the yellow bastard sobbed. Bennett. His name was Bennett.
      I muttered, "Ah, the hell with it," whirled and slapped the living shit
      out of him.

      Willie trotting at my side, I stride into the St. James Square office of
      the Supreme Allied Commander, who stands and returns my salute, then leans
      across the desk, grinning, to shake my hand. So this is going to be one of
      those across-the-desk things. Willie's leash goes taut as he snuffles the
      rug, the legs of the davenport, the bar -- all these SHAEF offices are
      tricked out like a goddamn bordello.
      "George, Christ, it's good to see you."
      "You, too, Ike, you, too."
      I hear a scramble beneath the desk, and a hairy muzzle pokes out,
      sniffing. It sweeps from left to right like a turret gun. Then it bares
      its teeth and growls.
      Willie stops so suddenly he nearly falls. He whimpers and shinnies
      backward, huddling against my boots.
      "Uh-oh," Ike says. He reaches beneath the desk to seize Telek by the
      collar. The Scottie yaps and struggles.
      "Hang on, Ike. I'll put him out." I scoop the trembling Willie into my
      arms -- Jesus! How heavy do bull terriers get, anyway? He's harder to lift
      all the time -- and turn to the door.
      "No, don't bother, George, Willie can stay. I'll put Telek out."
      "No, no, Ike. Telek outranks Willie. Besides, this is Telek's home.
      Protocols, eh? Mims! Thank you. Now, Willie, don't take on so, I won't be
      long, go with nice Sergeant Mims, Sergeant Mims will give you a treat. You
      did bring the treats, didn't you, Mims? Good man. That Mims is a good
      man," I say, as I close the door, leaning on the knob for support, and
      turn back to Ike. He is reassuring Telek, who has disappeared beneath the
      desk again.
      "Have a seat, George." He jerks a hand in the general direction of the
      hideous armchair -- Are all the man's gestures awkward? -- and, instead of
      crossing to the davenport, or to the other armchair, sits at the desk and
      rummages papers. Fine.
      "Thank you, sir," I say. Seating myself, determined not to show my relief
      at sitting down, I cross my legs at the knee and fold my hands in my lap.
      Ike looks up and blinks his huge, bright eyes.
      "Oh, come on, George, relax a little. Take your helmet off, at least. The
      stars are shining in my eyes. Heh."
      I lift it off, set it in my lap, smooth my hair, and fold my hands atop
      the helmet. So tired. Good thing no one could doze off in this upholstered
      torture device.
      "Juice? Soda water? I'm told there's real lemonade today. A convoy got
      through."
      I glance at the ice bucket, the tumblers, the amber decanter that sparkles
      in the lamplight.
      "No, thank you," I say, my mouth dry.
      "Trip into town go all right?"
      "Just fine, Ike. No complaints."
      He fusses with his papers again. I need something to focus on, so I study
      him. If he were going to chew me out for something, he'd have started
      already, would hardly have let me get in the door. If he were going to go
      over plans, discuss Third Army's progress, update me on the war news, he'd
      have waved me over to the map, talked a blue streak; he loves
      organization, he lives for chalk talks and pointers. Hell, if he just were
      feeling lonely at the top again, Miss Summersby indisposed or something,
      he'd have sat on the sofa -- or come out into the countryside to see me,
      not called me down to this damned fancy house.
      "Do you want anything to eat, George? I could have something sent up. I
      can't remember what we had tonight. I think it was just bangers again --
      I've somehow got to get an American cook assigned here without splitting
      the Alliance -- but hell, bangers would be better than nothing."
      I haven't eaten in days. My gorge rises at the thought of chewing,
      swallowing. I'll avoid the question with a joke. "In America," I say, "we
      call them sausages, Ike."
      I grin, but that was a cheap shot, and we both know it. He pulls off his
      spectacles -- always a laborious task with Ike, who unhooks first one
      shank and then the other, frowns that great flat face as if his ears were
      coming off with them -- and then looks at me without expression, tapping
      the spectacles on the blotter.
      "I know what you call them in America, George." He winces. "What we call
      them. Shit."
      I suppress another grin. "Sorry, Ike. Just a joke."
      He tosses the spectacles onto the desk. "Goddamn it, George, I didn't
      bring you in here for you to give me another lecture about kissing British
      ass."
      "I'm curious to hear why you did bring me in here, Ike."
      "Maybe I just wanted to have a pleasant visit with my oldest friend in the
      Army. Maybe I just wanted to stay up all night shooting the shit like we
      used to do."
      "That would be great," I say, "maybe. And maybe what else?"
      He sighs, twists his mouth sideways, as if he had bangers in his teeth.
      "George, I'm worried about you."
      This is new. "Worried," I say.
      "Look at yourself, George. You barely can carry your medals around. Your
      uniform hangs on you like an empty tent. You walk like a colored man in a
      zombie movie, and your eyes are a snowman's buttons. How much sleep have
      you been getting lately? Christ, even a Sherman has to be serviced now and
      then." He glances at the bar, and I follow his glance, then look back to
      see him staring at me. "George, for God's sake, you haven't -- "
      It actually has been a good day, considering; I haven't felt any pain
      since lunchtime. Until now.
      "Ike," I say.
      He sighs again and folds his arms, leaning on his elbows. He studies the
      paper-strewn desktop. "All right, George, I'm sorry for asking. I know you
      swore it off. But goddamn it, George, I've known you for twenty years, and
      I can tell when something's the matter. Now, as your friend and your
      commanding officer -- the only goddamn commanding officer you have between
      here and the Potomac -- I've got a right to know what it is."
      I shrug and flap my hands, make a show of gruff nonchalance, despite my
      growing unease. "Sure I'm tired, Ike, we're all tired. We'll all be tired
      until we've swept the Nazis out of Europe, and then we'll all have to go
      to the Pacific and be tired there, too. Hell, no one's any more tired than
      you are, Ike. The question is, whether my being tired is impairing my
      efficiency as commander of Third Army. Do you have any signals that it
      is?" A note of generous cooperation might be helpful here. "Because if you
      do, Ike," I continue, voice chirping as I suppress a cough, "I want to
      hear about it straight up, straight from you -- as my friend and as my
      commanding officer."
      The wall map behind Ike boasts a snarl of red arrows through France. None
      follows the straight, ancient roads that William the Conqueror used. The
      map in my own office is different.
      Ike shakes his head, flips through a thick sheaf of reports, many of which
      bear my signature. A show of busyness; he hasn't put his spectacles back
      on. "No, George, no I don't. In fact, I hear nothing but glowing reports
      from Peover. All the equipment and personnel coming in on schedule,
      absolute secrecy at all levels, the training going well -- hell, George,
      you could train Veronica Lake to be a tank commander if you had to,
      everybody knows that. No, those boys won't be green long. I presume you've
      got the usual bitching about the helmets and neckties, eh?" He looks back
      up, closes the folder, lets his fingertips rest on it, his hand crouched
      like a spider. "Any other problems in Peover that I should know about?"
      I laugh, give him the million-dollar grin. "Well, Ike, the men at
      headquarters are having a bit of trouble pronouncing the name of their
      town. Instead of 'Peever,' they keep saying 'Pee-over,' and so now a lot
      of them are calling it 'Piss Over.' Maybe it'll catch on, and the Brits
      will have to change their maps." He's not laughing. "Other than that, no,
      Ike, I'm real proud of everyone in Third. No real killer instinct yet in
      many of them, but that will come, that will come. Walker in particular,
      he's doing a fine job with Twenty Corps."
      "Yes, yes, it's in the reports. Glad to hear it." He reaches out for the
      spectacles, and my gut clenches. "But I see other reports, too, George."
      He hooks his spectacles back on, pulls from beneath a stack a lavender
      folder that's unfamiliar to me. He opens it and leafs through it, which
      doesn't take long, as it only contains a few sheets of paper, typed,
      single-spaced, and unsigned but stamped with an unfamiliar seal. "And
      those reports are a bit more ... well, I guess perplexing is the word for
      what these are."
      "What do you mean?" I ask. Suddenly it's stifling in here. I want to mop
      my forehead, but I don't dare. This is bad. This is very bad.
      He scratches his head and squints. "Fortitude, George. Operation
      Fortitude. The fake invasion of Calais, the one we're feeding the Germans.
      Now, initially, George, I recall you weren't thrilled about your role in
      that. 'Goddamn figurehead,' those were your words, I believe."
      My knees are beginning to ache again. I shift, and that lousy armchair
      makes farting noises. "In the heat of the moment, I may well have said
      something like that."
      "I'm sure of the 'goddamn,' at any rate. But you seem to have become
      wildly enthusiastic about this fake invasion headquarters the movie studio
      built in East Anglia." He traces the lines of type with an index finger.
      "Why, in the past few weeks alone, you've been out there ... twelve times.
      You were there on the 17th, the 20th, again on the 23rd and 24th -- you
      stayed the night that visit, George ... "
      I once saw Ike sit between two chattering machine guns on a practice range
      while working out tactical problems with a stubby pencil. He certainly
      isn't going to let himself be distracted by me -- but I try for heartiness
      anyway. "You ought to come out there with me sometime, Ike." I slap my
      thigh. "It's a remarkable setup, just fascinating."
      "It certainly fascinates you, George. The 28th, the 30th ... George, I
      know we asked you to be seen in that area occasionally, but two or three
      times would have sufficed." He clears his throat, rubs his jaw. "And then
      there's the matter of your behavior on the site."
      Something is rubbing my boot. Telek. The Scottie sniffs around my feet,
      then sits up and cocks its ears, trying to be adorable. "My behavior," I
      say, thinking fast.
      "Assigning rank to all the civilian workers. Requiring them to adhere to
      military codes of dress and deportment. Haggling over blueprints. Making
      demands that are, at the very least, strange. I mean, really, George.
      Unused roads must be kept in top repair. Unused airfields must be graded
      once a week. The hospital must be enlarged to accommodate expected ...
      casualties? George, that hospital's an empty shell." He looks at me,
      expressionless, sucks the corner of his mouth a moment.
      I reach to pat Telek, who shies away with a whimper. My hand is left
      groping at nothing. "It's all part of the deception, Ike. If that camp
      isn't convincing on the ground, it won't be convincing from the air."
      "Uh-huh. Talking to yourself, George -- is that another part of the
      deception?" Now I'm cold, but sweat is trickling into my left eye. Ike's
      tracing finger begins tapping the page, with an increasingly staccato
      rhythm. "Roaming the grounds all night, muttering to yourself, or to
      somebody. Addressing soldiers who aren't there. Dressing them down, giving
      them pep talks."
      Thomson. What a fool I've been. Always stepping out from behind something,
      surprising me. Always wanting to tag along, show me new things. Always so
      attentive to everything I say and do, as if she privately admired me, as
      if she were storing up information to share with her friends.
      "I'll be goddamned," I say aloud. "A spy."
      Ike sighs and says, "Oh, come on, George, Fortitude is an Intelligence
      operation. They're all spies, or they wouldn't be there." He sits back,
      laces his fingers across his stomach, what there is of it. His chair moans
      softly. "At any rate, this report tells me what you've been up to during
      your off hours. Running the real Third Army by day and the fake First U.S.
      Army Group by night and running yourself into the ground in the process.
      My question, George, is still: Why? What the hell's going on?" He waits.
      "Please tell me you've got something going with the Thomson woman, and
      she's so good that you see visions afterward."
      I make a contemptuous noise in my throat. One of the first things I wrote
      down, that night in Mexico, was
      BEATRICE
      and I've done right by her this time, by God; I've made sure of that. My
      conscience is clear on that score.
      What I say is: "That's a bit personal, Ike."
      "Shit," he says, flat and commanding, as if he had said, "Fire." Another
      bad sign. He continues: "When one of my top officers begins to display
      every sign of confusing fantasy and reality, that's gone way beyond the
      personal." He rocks in his creaking chair. "Talk to me, George. I'm
      serious. Talk to me, or I'm liable to forget I'm your friend, and remember
      I'm the guy in charge of seeing that Operation Overlord doesn't fall apart
      before we reach Paris, much less Berlin."
      "Goddamn it," I say, standing up. My helmet hits the floor, rolls. Too
      fast; a wave of dizziness as I lean both fists on the desk. Ike sits there
      like a Buddha. "That's just it, Ike."
      "What's it?"
      "Overlord. Put me in it, Ike."
      Now, for the first time, he looks tired, too. "Oh, for -- "
      "Monty and Bradley don't know what they're getting into, no one does, but
      I do, Ike, I know what needs to be done -- "
      He shakes his head, stares at the wall. "I don't believe this."
      " -- you know and I know that if the troops in Normandy get bogged down
      behind those hedgerows, we'll have a real risk of trench warfare on our
      hands. The goal shouldn't be capturing territory, it should be killing
      Germans." With a burst of energy that's almost painful, I bang the desk
      with my fists. "Sir," I add.
      Ike shoves his chair back and stands, running his hands over his head as
      if polishing it. "No," he mutters. "No, no, no, no, no."
      "Ike, I've been sending you papers, proposals. You've read them."
      "Yes, George, read them and re-read them and shook my head and put them in
      the file of old business. Old business, George." He thumps the wall map
      with the side of his fist. "In case you hadn't noticed, our invasion plan
      has already been decided."
      "Ike -- "
      He keeps thumping the map, punctuating his points. Another damned chalk
      talk. "I mean it, George. Overlord is workable, it will succeed, and it's
      the only one all the Allies agree on -- all, George. Now I know you're
      pissed off that you have to sit here in England with Third until the
      beaches are held, and I sympathize, but George, that's how it's going to
      be. After that hospital business in Sicily, you're lucky to be in charge
      of anything and crossing the Channel at all, and you know it." He takes a
      deep breath, closes his eyes, and rubs his forehead. "My God, George," he
      says, more quietly. He chuckles, eyes still closed, and shakes his head.
      "I swear. You act sometimes like one of those tent evangelists, like Aimee
      Semple McPherson with a pipeline to the heavens. Like you can wave your
      hands and call down the angels and have them whisper in your ear exactly
      what we all ought to do, and exactly how this war is going to turn out."
      He starts to say more, but something, a thought, a realization, stops him.
      He opens his eyes. We stare at each other across the desk. Ike blinks,
      opens his mouth, closes it again.
      It is small of me, I know, but I cannot restrain a surge of pride. How
      many years has it been since I last saw Ike afraid?
      He puts one hand to his forehead. The hand trembles. "Jesus Christ," he
      murmurs, still looking at me.
      "Now, Ike -- "
      "Hang on, George. Hang on a second." He turns to the bar, wrestles the top
      off the ice bucket, and begins flinging cubes into a tumbler.
      "Ike, listen to me." I reach up to grab his shoulders, think better of it,
      falter. "There's something I should have told you years ago."
      I have never told anyone, not even Beatrice, not even Papa -- the real
      Papa. Not anyone.
      "I've lived all this before."
      Drink in hand, his back to me, Ike straightens. The ice chuckles in the
      glass.
      "You see, I know how things are going to turn out ... or, at least, how
      they're likely to turn out ... and so I know, better than anyone else,
      Ike, how risky Overlord -- "
      Ike turns, tumbler to lips, and holds up one index finger for silence.
      Usually this means the fuse is lit. I shut up and grit my teeth. He gulps
      his drink, then lowers it. He keeps the finger raised.
      "First of all, George," Ike says, very quietly, "I don't want to hear one
      more word, tonight or ever, about all this psychic reincarnation
      mumbo-jumbo, or I swear to God your war is over."
      "Ike -- "
      "I mean it, George. Second. No more complaints about Overlord. Not to me,
      not to anyone. Hear me, George?"
      I swallow, hang my head, look as contrite as possible. So tired, and so
      much to do. "I hear you, Ike."
      "Third." He swigs his empty drink, gets a mouthful of ice, talks around
      it. "I want you to lay off Fortitude. It's a wonderful deception, George,
      but that's all it is. A deception. A fake. A Quaker cannon. Don't take it
      seriously. It'll make you crazy. OK? OK? George?"
      May the God of war and all my ancestors and all the soldiers I have been
      and am, be with me now, and always.
      "George. Are you listening, George?"
      I look up, try to grin. "Yes, Ike. Perfectly. I've been -- I've been under
      stress, you know." I choke out the words. "Just like Sicily. But I'll get
      hold of myself, sure I will." I pat his shoulder, as awkward as Ike
      himself. "You can count on me." I clear my throat. "Anything else?"
      My destiny depends on how convincing that was. It didn't sound very
      convincing to me.
      "Yes," Ike said. He sighs and leans against the bar, his shoulders
      drooping. "You can have a drink with me, and we'll talk about old times,
      and you can try to persuade me that this lousy job won't cost me all my
      friends. What'll you have?"
      Swallowing my exultation, I say, in a smooth, even voice: "Lemonade will
      be fine, Ike. Just fine."
      Much later, on the way out, down marble stairs and along carpeted
      corridors -- what a palatial warren these Limey offices are -- Ike is in
      chummy mood, arm around my shoulders, grinning up into my face like an
      elf. I'm not fooled. I know he'll be watching me even more closely than
      usual from here on, and that means Marshall and Stimson, too. How many
      phone calls, how many telegrams, before I'm sent home? So little time.
      As we reach the lobby, we pause in front of a vast window and watch the
      fires. People come and go behind us in the echoing darkness, and near the
      front door, illuminated by the flickerings outside, I see the shapes of
      Willie and Sergeant Mims, also watching. I long to get back in the
      Mercedes, to have a couple of hours' rest, just sitting down, but I stand
      as upright as possible. Wouldn't do to let Ike support me.
      "George, do you remember Camp Meade?"
      "I sure do."
      "Hard to believe now that we once were so bored, we'd drive through the
      countryside armed to the teeth and hope robbers would jump us. Do you
      know, George, I still wish they had."
      "So do I, by God, so do I."
      "At least then we'd have accomplished something in that do-nothing
      assignment."
      "But we did, Ike. Remember? We proved that if we had to, you and I could
      take a tank apart and put it back together again single-handed. And I bet
      we're the only two generals in this whole miserable war who can say that."
      "That's right. By God, I had nearly forgotten! You and me in the garage
      the whole damn weekend. I never thought we'd be able to do it, George, but
      goddamn if you weren't right, as usual. Every last nut and bolt back in
      place."
      "We were nothing but grease from head to toe, a couple of Jolsons."
      "And when we were done you made a big show of being horrified and pulled
      that big old washer out of your pocket -- said, 'Oh, shit, we forgot one!'
      For a second I believed you. Nearly wet our pants laughing."
      "Nearly?"
      "Almost got killed fooling with those tanks, George. You remember when
      that snapped cable went whipping past our heads, and cut down those
      saplings behind us?"
      "Hell, yes, I do. Scared the shit out of us, didn't it?"
      "George." His voice is different. His face is grim in the firelight. He
      nearly whispers. "When I look at you now, George, do you know what I think
      of? I think of that cable. Snapping."
      We stare at each other for a second or two. Then from across the lobby
      comes a terrible burst of snarling. Sergeant Mims and a couple of MPs are
      dancing in a circle, waving their hands and yelling, while at their feet
      is a roiling, yipping mass of fur and teeth.
      "Aw, shit. Telek!" Ike yells.
      "Willie!"
      The dogs might have killed each other already, if it not for the parquet
      floor. No traction. Willie a fighter! I can't believe it. Ike and I holler
      and curse and snatch at their collars but can't grab hold. WACs and staff
      officers come running from all the doorways and gather around and add to
      the din. The ruckus rebounds off the vaulted ceiling. Finally Sergeant
      Mims grabs a William Morris vase and empties it on the mutts, flowers and
      all. A good man, Sergeant Mims. Ike and I seize the chance to lunge, and
      soon both of us have an armload of wet, scrambling dog. A few damp daisies
      droop from Willie's ears like a garland. Ike has his hand clamped around
      Telek's muzzle, but I let Willie bark, and bark, and bark, the echoes
      sounding like an army of terriers pouring through the building, converging
      on the entryway from all directions.
      "Sorry, George," Ike says, loudly. "I must have left the door ajar. No
      harm done, I hope."
      "Harm done? Ike, I'd say this is Willie's finest hour." The pain hasn't
      entirely gone, but I feel energized again, rested, rejuvenated. I beam at
      everyone. "Did you see the little bastard go? Did you see him? I'd say he
      was getting the best of it, what do you all say?"
      A general murmur of cautious assent, with wary glances toward the Supreme
      Commander, who grins and says, "I think you're right, George, Willie won
      this round. But maybe we can keep the fighting to a minimum from here on
      -- right, George?" His grin doesn't extend to his eyes. I beam at him,
too.
      "Ike, if even my Willie can become a fighter, then who knows? Anything
      might happen. Anything at all." I kiss the sodden, yipping mutt on the top
      of his head. The bystanders applaud. Whew! What a smell. I kiss him again,
      hard.

      I shuffle as fast as I can along the main road through the camp, trying
      not to pass out. No lights, except a couple of feeble dim rectangles in
      the black bulk of the main construction shed. I left my flash in the car;
      no need for it. I know my way well, and soon we'll have lights enough.
      As I pass the shed, I hear the erratic heartbeat of a hammer. All across
      the camp, tents snap and thump in the ocean breeze. Behind me, gravel
      grinds beneath the Mercedes as Mims rolls forward, headlights off, tailing
      me with gravity. Otherwise, silence.
      It's tempting to think that I am the only person abroad in the camp, in
      the British Isles, in the world. But I know I'm not. I can't take refuge
      in that fantasy. My senses are too acute. I hear small murmurous movements
      in the shadows that I know aren't hedgehogs. I begin to smell, not sawdust
      and turpentine, but grease and gasoline. I know a flashlight beam would
      pick up, all around me, the gleam of rivets and steel. I try to hang onto
      the sensation, firm up the silhouettes, people the darkness. It's a queer
      feeling, doing all my seeing with the corners of my eyes. But it's what
      I've been doing for weeks now, and I'm getting good at it. Tonight, God of
      war willing, it pays off.
      I think often about September 26, 1918, the start of the Meuse-Argonne
      offensive, when a hundred troops of the 138th Regiment of the 35th
      Division appeared ninety minutes sooner than previously, and saved my
      life. For years, I pondered their timely appearance. Happenstance? Just
      one of countless small, random differences between lives? Or was I
      partially responsible for those men? In my pain, in my despair, in, most
      of all, my knowledge of what should be, had I somehow ... summoned them?
      Once I began thinking in this way, I couldn't stop. I filled notebooks.
      Take the unexpected sniper on that Mexican rooftop. If he had lived to
      croak out his story, what reason would he have given for being up there,
      for not riding out with the other bandits? Perhaps he wouldn't have had a
      reason. Maybe he just felt compelled to be there. Compelled by what, or
      whom?
      And Thomson. Well worth thinking about, Thomson was. A real asset to
      Fortitude, yes. That's probably her in the shed now, burning the midnight
      oil. Damn glad to have her, even if she is a Limey spy. But where did
      Thomson come from? How did she wind up in charge out here, instead of that
      hapless Cockney I dealt with before?
      Then there was Joe Angelo. Unlike Thomson, he was someone I knew, or
      thought I knew. But in Washington that bloody day he was different. The
      previous Joe never would have said those things. But the previous George
      Patton never would have said what I said, either. Was one difference the
      chicken, the other the egg? To what extent did I create that different
      Joe?
      In everyone's life there are crossroads, moments of decision, however
      insignificant. To spot the crucial moments in his life, and act, makes a
      great soldier. To spot the crucial moments on a larger scale, a grand
      scale -- that's the work of a general.
      Maybe going through life a second time ... disturbs things. Throws up
      sparks. Creates turbulence. Maybe the identical set of circumstances can't
      be duplicated, because it would violate, say, some universal law. So my
      surroundings get rearranged in new patterns, new circumstances. New
      people. If I couldn't remember my previous life, I'd never realize I had
      this power. I'd be as dumb as I was the first time through. Even with my
      memories for comparison, I've been damnably slow on the uptake. Only here,
      in England, pondering my options, watching Thomson watch me, have I begun
      to suspect: All this time, without even realizing it, much less using it,
      I've graduated from merely having visions; I've been creating people out
      of thin air.
      It's an insane idea, yes, but hell, this is war. If insanity works, a
      general is duty-bound to use it.
      But the closer I get to that fatal car wreck in Mannheim, the harder it
      becomes, physically, to change things. Even an attempted change is hard;
      just ask that pissant Bennett. The past few weeks have made me a sick old
      man. But I won't sit on this rock like a puffin for a second D-day. I
      won't. I'll get myself a real invasion force, or I'll die trying.
      There! Wasn't that the sound of a match being struck? A rifle barrel being
      broken open? A letter from home being unfolded yet again? A can opener
      working around a hoarded snack of potted meat? A nickel being tossed into
      the pot? A whisper of conversation between two soldiers who can't sleep?
      Whatcha thinking about?
      Nothing. Home, I guess. You?
      Nah. Just my girl. She's in New York.
      That's home, too, I guess.
      Yeah. Smoke?
      Sure.
      As I pass, something thrashes in the tall grass of the ditch, skips away
      across the road, between the tanks. I don't look to see what it is, but
      surely wild creatures wouldn't venture inside an active Army camp. Must be
      my imagination. The wind has picked up, and now I hear whispers on all
      sides.
      Old Man
      look
      it's him all right
      What's up?
      better follow
      I don't look around as I hear the footsteps behind me, first one set and
      then ten and then twenty and then many more, walking nearly in unison,
      crunching the roadway with a quiet, harsh sound.
      In the center of the camp, the main road intersects three others, and
      their union is a wide turnabout. Here I stop. I close my eyes and ponder
      what to say, as the footsteps move to surround me.
      Normally, on the eve of battle, I do this in the daytime, with a battery
      of microphones and loudspeakers and a hillside full of troops like the
      Sermon on the goddamn Mount. But nothing's normal about this operation, is
      it?
      Someone coughs, and then someone else. Enough. Time to get started, or
      I've lost them. If an army isn't inspired, it's nothing.
      "Men," I say.
      Even without amplification, my voice carries. All is silent again. As I
      speak, I keep my eyes shut.
      "You've heard what Ike and Bradley and all the pencil pushers in London
      and Washington say about you. They say you're not a real army. They say
      you're nothing but a bunch of fakers. They say there's no fight in you.
      You've heard all these things, and so have I."
      Utter silence. They don't know what to make of this.
      "But you know, and you know, soldier, and you and you and you know" --
      eyes still closed, I "look" from one soldier to the other, a surefire
      technique -- "just as I know, that all that talk is nothing whatsoever but
      bull-shit."
      Some whistling, a couple of cheers, applause. The wind is picking up
again.
      I continue: "And we all know whose opinions really matter, don't we? Who
      we should pay attention to? Those son-of-a-bitching Germans, that's who."
      I start to pace, slowly, crouching to emphasize a point and standing
      upright again, then wheeling to retrace my deliberate steps. Many hours
      I've spent at zoos, watching panthers and other hypnotic beasts.
      "That's right. Those Germans are as clever and as practical as a nest of
      rats, and they don't waste time with fantasies. They see the truth. When
      they look at you, they don't see a lot of fakers. They don't see a
      laughing matter. They don't see a paper army. No, they look at you, and
      they look into your eyes and your guts and your souls, and they see who
      your commander is, and do you know what they do? Do you know what they're
      doing right now, in Bitburg and Frankfurt and Dusseldorf and Heidelberg?"
      Tell us, General
      What are they doing
      You tell 'em, General
      "I'll tell you what they're doing. They're knocking their knees together
      and pissing in their pants and jumping headfirst into ratholes and
      wailing, 'Goddamn it all to hell, it's that goddamn First U.S. Army Group
      and that son-of-a-bitch Patton again!'"
      Laughs, shouts, applause, rushing upward like a bonfire freshly caught.
      "They know we're going to come over there and kick their asses west to
      east for a thousand miles and hunt them down and kill every last one of
      them, from the first beachfront machine-gunner in France to the goddamn
      Fuhrer himself, hiding beneath the seat of the last upright shithouse in
      Berlin.'"
      Now they're really whooping it up.
      Hot damn
      He can put it down there, can't he
      Tell us, General, tell us
      Time to quiet them down again, sober them up. I start sneaking glances at
      the dark and shifting shapes all around, at cigarettes glowing bright and
      then dimming like fireflies, at tank guns outlined by the stars.
      "I know what you men are thinking. You're wondering whether you have what
      it takes in battle. You're wondering whether you're going to honor
      yourself, or disgrace yourself. Honor your country, or disgrace your
      country."
      Mostly silent now. I can hear the faint caress of the surf.
      "Well, men, I know what's going to happen to each of you, and I'll tell
      you in advance so that you won't have to worry any more. Each of you is
      going to fight, and fight, and fight, until there's no more fighting to be
      done."
      Hell yeah!
      We'll fight, sure we will
      Bring 'em on
      "Because you are Americans. All Americans love to fight, and you men are
      no different."
      Goddamn, I'm out of practice. My throat's like beef. I raise my voice to
      be heard over the rising tide of approval.
      "It is your duty to fight, it is your nature to fight, it is your divine
      destiny to fight, and it is your pleasure to fight, and kill, and keep
      fighting and killing until every last Nazi in Europe is dead. And then
      it's the goddamn Nazi army that will be a figment of the imagination, and
      not you, because you will have proved yourself real with your sweat and
      your blood and your guts."
      Now I detect smells, too -- shoe polish and hair tonic and C rations and
      Lucky Strikes and chewing gum and axle grease and old boots and freshly
      laundered fatigues and the pungent sweetness of gasoline and tank exhaust.
      I gulp the air.
      "The job ahead of you, men, is the biggest job ever undertaken by an
      American army, the biggest job ever undertaken by any army in any war. And
      you are ready for it. You may not think you are ready, but I am your
      commanding officer, and I am here to tell you that you are. I have
      absolute confidence in each and every one of you to do his job and keep on
      doing it no matter what."
      Now I'm bellowing to be heard. My knees are weak. God, how I have needed
      this. I step backward a few paces, grope behind for something to lean on.
      "Hell, I might even feel sorry for those poor sons of bitches we're about
      to kill, but they brought it on themselves. Those Nazis started all this
      goddamn son-of-a-bitchery, and by God, you and I as Americans are going to
      finish it."
      Pandemonium. I feel the crowd surging around me, hot and close, but I
      still can't distinguish faces, individuals, even though my eyes are wide
      open. I back into something smooth and massive: a tank. I lean against it,
      grateful, run my hands along its flank, prick my finger on something, take
      a last deep breath, and raise my hands for order.
      Listen up, you bastards
      Listen to the General
      Ten-SHUN
      The racket fades into a murmur, and as I open my mouth for a final push, I
      focus on my smarting finger and realize --
      A splinter? From a Sherman tank?
      Oh, Jesus, no. Jesus God.
      I close my eyes, reach behind me again. The crowd around me, so close, so
      stifling, so ... familiar. And now I smell burning pyres, the reek of
      longboats, blood on armor, and a thousand Shenandoah campfires.
      Goddamn it, I smell the past. But I don't want the past. I don't want it!
      I want --
      Before I can yank my hand away in fear, my fingers brush steel: cold,
      riveted. I lift my fingers to my nose, smell metal and oil.
      I whisper, "Another chance, Papa," and I crumple to the ground. First to
      my knees, then sideways, no strength left to catch myself. A general gasp
      around me.
      You OK, General?
      Still with us?
      He's a good one, ain't he?
      He's gonna let us have it, you watch
      Look at him
      Here he goes
      Spitting dirt, I roll over and try to lift my head. I can't see a damn
      thing, just spots before my eyes.
      I'd like to be there when Ike gets the news. But maybe it won't be news to
      him anymore, this unexpected reinforcement, this change in plans, this
      change in destiny. Maybe, like these men, he knows the voice of command,
      and forgets everything that came before. Because he, like these men, is a
      soldier.
      Somehow I manage to shout: "Men!" Then a coughing spasm hits me, and then,
      with my last reserves of air, I continue:
      "I tell you the truth tonight when I say that you are the best army, the
      most dedicated army, the most American army, that I have ever had the
      privilege of commanding. You, my friends, are that thing so rarely seen on
      the face of this sorry earth -- a real army! And you will continue to make
      me proud, and win victories, and kick German ass, until this war is over.
      Remember. The shortest route home is through Berlin! So follow me, men!
      Let's piss in the Rhine, and then go home!"
      A tremendous cheer pins me to the ground, gasping, and then I hear a
      series of whunts as the floodlights go on, and I feel the light hot on my
      skin like a new sun. I hear a gunning of engines, a storm of voices, a
      rush of cracks and snaps like wildfire, as thousands of men lift their
      rifles, shoulder their packs, secure their gear. Above me I see only
      blackness, but I hear everything. Sergeants bark orders. Convoys of
      vehicles snort and spit exhaust as they grind past -- jeeps and supply
      trucks and ambulances. Platoons trot alongside. Their packs rustle in
      unison, and the running men huff as one, like a steam engine. A deafening
      roar overhead: must be a bomber, low but climbing; a second one, a third.
      Ours. And the tanks! Nothing else like that clanking rattling trundling
      growl, that single file column churning the earth in a huge turtle furrow
      leading straight to the sea. By God, I wish I could see it. I want to
      whoop, to dance, to find Willie and kiss him again, but I can't even lift
      my head. It lolls in the damp grass. The blades prickle my cheek. I would
      turn over if I could. "Mims," I whisper. Why haven't any of these
      goddamned nincompoops picked me up, set me upright? They wouldn't dare
      leave without their general, start the battle without me -- would they?
      "Mims!"
      Amid the racket -- now melding, tanks and trucks and guns and men, into a
      single featureless roar -- I hear people bustle about me. Strong hands
      roll me over, and brisk fingers brush the grass and dirt from my face,
      fingers sharp and stiff as a whisk broom. Someone pants hot, rancid breath
      into my face, then licks my cheek. I immediately feel better. My voice
      sounds unnatural, raspy, as I say: "Hi, there, Willie, did you miss me?
      That's the boy. That's the boy."
      A Yankee murmur in the background. Mims, conversing with someone.
      I continue: "Now this, Mims, this looks like a goddamn army, wouldn't you
      say?"
      Willie whines and rips the grass, digging in, as someone pulls him away.
      Thomson's voice: "Come away from there, Willie. Come here, you cur.
      General? General!"
      I wish I could salute. "Colonel Thomson," I say.
      "Bugger that," she says.
      "Now, Thomson -- "
      "What the devil is going on here, General?" She's close to my ear, perhaps
      kneeling on the ground. "I demand an explanation, do you hear me? And what
      is wrong with you, Willie? Come here, then. Don't kiss me! Oh, appalling.
      What do you feed him, General, damned souls and fish heads?"
      The longer I lie there, surrounded by the rumble of an army on the move,
      listening to Thomson's small struggle in the middle of a war, the more
      elated I feel. Can't change everything. Just ask Hitler. So, Fortitude has
      changed, but Thomson is still Thomson. Must be a reason for that. Must be.
      Interesting to find out what the hell it is.
      Thomson, on the other hand, is getting madder and madder. "Oh, grin, grin,
      grin away, then. You Yanks are quite the grinners, aren't you? Your bloody
      president is positively sharklike. No, Willie, no, you can't get down,
      Mims will be back in a minute with a treat. Stay still, you bastard. You
      needn't look so amused, General, I intend to have my answers."
      I no longer can distinguish the sounds of the army. Everything that isn't
      Thomson is just a single glorious background noise, like a violent shore,
      and steadily louder. "You'll have your answers," I say. "But it'll have to
      be en route, Colonel. I have an urgent appointment to keep. Mims!"
      Thomson, who's in better voice, begins calling as well. "Damn it all.
      Mims! Mims!"
      As she calls, I hear the thunder. Willie whines anew. I hear Thomson
      scramble to her feet, and Willie, apparently in her arms, begins to yelp
      in earnest. Calling Mims, Thomson fades, as if moving away, and the
      thunder gets louder, like a new radio show fading in and taking the place
      of another. This battle's begun. I squint toward the east, trying to find
      the first faint glimmers of the sunrise, but even the airfield looks dark
      to me. I picture the first wave of naval artillery hitting the ancient
      waterfront of Calais, twenty-one miles across the Channel. I picture the
      medieval watchtower slumping into the water, the bricks of the old city
      raining onto the cobblestones, Rodin's statue of the unhappy burghers
      being pounded into slag. At the end of the great siege of Calais six
      hundred years before, King Edward ordered me to put those burghers to the
      sword, then at the last minute changed his mind, told me to sheathe --
      But that is in my past. Ahead of me, for the first time in many years, is
      my future.
      "Mims!" I shout as the concussions grow louder, mimic my heartbeat.
      "Willie! Thomson!"
      They can't hear me. Too much racket, of course. Listen to that army! By
      God, we've turned this sorry-ass assignment around, haven't we, Thomson?
      We won't be sitting out this invasion, no ma'am! Follow me, men! They know
      who their leader is. The guns are layered in cotton, pound, pound, pound.
      Murdering border bandits. Damn Gila monsters. I salute the jeering
      galleries overhead. A rotten pear bursts against my helmet. I've done my
      duty, you hear me, you bastards? How many of you can say the same? You
      don't see me getting shot, do you? The bandit looks up from the hood and
      grins. Look at the yellow son of a bitch, look at the crying baby. You're
      going to make something of yourself this time, Georgie, yes you are. Fair
      deal, Joe, fair deal. I can't be still, Ike, for God's sake, don't you
      see? You think I can be immobilized so easily? Suspended in wires with a
      hose in my ass and pins in my neck and a spreading brown spot on the
      ceiling for entertainment? I won't do it again, Ike, I won't. This is
      where I belong, right here, at the head of an army. That's all I want, all
      I've ever wanted, and I've got it. I've done it. I've won. As long as one
      tank is able to move it must go forward. I won't just lie here, I won't.
      Follow me, men. Come on! There's nothing left for you here, nothing, I
      tell you, but death in a ditch, and there's no one else to lead you. No
      one but Georgie. Follow me, men. We're out of the trenches, and moving
      forward. Follow me.

      ⌐ Andy Duncan 1999, 2000. All rights reserved.
      This novella was first published in Realms of Fantasy (June 1999) and is
      republished in Andy Duncan's collection Beluthahatchie and Other Stories
      (Golden Gryphon Press, 2000)