Even after a full, uninterrupted—thanks mostly to Sergeants Cohen and Chamberlin—twenty-four hours of sleep and a luxurious bath in the riverlet with soap, even with his too long empty belly now gleefully working on a can of beans with pork, one of grease patties, one of hard crackers and two D-bars washed down with a pint of coffee that really was hot and sweet, even after being able to shave with hot water and throw away his tattered, incredibly filthy clothing for a new issue that had included no less than four pairs of thick socks and a pair of new field shoes that had broad, thick pieces of leather secured by brass buckles sewn to the top to go around and protect the lower leg and ankle, even after he had pared his fingernails down to the very quick and scrubbed away the last of the ground-in, fecal-stinking black filth that had for so long found lodgment under his nails, he still was not quite the old Milo Moray when he responded to a field-telephoned summons and came into the Charlie Company CP area.
Because the other two platoon leaders had not as yet made their appearances, Milo seized upon the opportunity to pick through the small hillocks of recently delivered supplies, principally in search of new ponchos for him, Chamberlin and Cohen, but not intending to turn down any odd but necessary goodies he should chance across. He already had been able to stuff several items into his ready duffel bag—soap and shaving soap, some GI spoons, a brand-new carbine bayonet and case, four ponchos, a number of new magazines for pistol, Thompson and BARs, two, new canteens with cups and covers, a compact carton containing a gross of book matches, another of chewing gum, a dozen toothbrushes and cans of toothpowder, foot powder and some dozens of razor blades. He had just dragged his bag over to another pile and squatted before it to delve when he heard a vaguely familiar nasal whine of a voice behind him.
“You need a haircut, soldier. Who gave you permission to paw through those supplies, anyway? They belong to the unit as a whole, not to you personally, you know. You could be charged with theft, for misappropriation of government materiel, and I think I should do just that, here and now, and … eeek!”
Upon hearing a strange voice behind him, Milo’s combat-honed senses had reacted, and the drawing and aiming of the pistol, the spinning about on his deeply flexed legs, had been as instinctive as breathing. Not until then did his still-tired mind register that the figure standing there was clad in a too-clean GI uniform and polished boots, and was staring—wide-eyed and pale-faced, trembling with very obvious fear—at the gaping .45 caliber muzzle pointing up at him. As it all registered, including the gold bars pinned to each epaulette of the pressed, flat-pocketed field shirt, Milo grinned and lowered the pistol, rapidly disarmed it and returned it to its worn holster.
“Sorry, lieutenant. Are you a replacement? You must be, else you’d know better than to come up behind a man and startle him like that. I could’ve blown your silly head off, you know? The next time around, you might not be so lucky.” Then, recalling just how the new officer had looked, Milo chuckled and added, “You scare easy, don’t you, sonny?”
The officer turned and screamed at a noncom just coming out of a squad tent. “Sergeant, sergeant… yes, you, over here, on the double! I want this man placed under arrest, now! And seal that bag of his, too. I’ll prefer charges against him. Well, are you going to obey my orders to arrest him?”
First Sergeant Dixon looked quizzical. “You want me to put Lootenant Moray under arrest, Lootenant Brettmann? What in hell for? Why don’t you go in and talk to the captain about it?”
The new officer was stunned. “You … you mean … are you trying to tell me that this … this larcenous, insubordinate, murderous ragamuffin is a commissioned officer of the Army of the United States of America?”
Catching Milo’s eye, Dixon raised his eyebrows and shook his head, but spoke to the new officer slowly and distinctly, as if to an idiot child. “Thass right, Lootenant Brettmann, sir. Thishere’s Lootenant Milo Moray of the secon’ pl’toon, sir.”
At the sergeant’s mention of the surname, it all finally came back to Milo—the vaguely familiar voice and the pointy, ratlike features. Smiling coldly, he said in Dutch, “Well, Comrade Jaan Brettman, how are things in Moscow?”
Later, seated on a wooden case of small-arms ammo across a folding field table from Tom Beverley, with a white-faced, trembling Brettmann standing stiffly off to one side of the small tent, Milo said tiredly, “He’s full of shit, too, Tom, he always has been. If I’d really tried to kill him, ever, the little fucker would be pushing up daisies by now, and you know me well enough to know it, too. Don’t you?”
Beverlyy just nodded; he did know Milo that well. He fumbled briefly in a bag at his feet to come up with a bottle and a pair of battered tin cups. After pulling the cork with his teeth, he filled both cups and shoved one across to Milo. He did not even glance at Brettmann.
“Okay, Milo, division wished the Jewboy here off on us, and ah don’t know him from Adam’s housecat. He says you tried to kill him years back and again just now, so you must’ve known him before this, unless he’s completely round the bend … and that’s possible, too. If you did know him sometime and someplace else, tell me about it. Ah need to know all ah can about mah men and officers.”
Milo sipped appreciatively at the smooth single-malt whisky and sighed with pleasure. “There’s not all that much to tell, Tom. I knew him only very briefly. We met on only one occasion, in fact. He was from a family of Dutch Jewish immigrants; all except him were good, decent, hardworking people. Out of the proceeds of a tiny one-man tailor ship, his father was sending both him and his eider brother, Sol, to college … and all this was in ‘37, too, mind you.
“Sol Brettmann was in law school, but Jaan here apparently was a major in revolutionary Bolshevism, while on the side he was teaching impressionable, sheltered young girls the finer points of burglary and sneak-thievery. When I caught him trying to break into my strongbox in my room of the house I was then calling home, he tried to knife me, and I broke his arm for him. Because he had involved a daughter of my landlady in his criminal activities, the police were never called into it, and after he was deemed fit to travel, he was sent back East somewhere to live with relatives. Until today, when he surprised me and I drew my pistol on him, I’d never seen or heard of him again, and I’m here to tell you that even this meeting, seven years since the last, was way too soon.”
Beverley drained his cup, refilled it, then leaned across to pour more into Moray’s half-empty one. He nodded. “That’s all we need, Milo, all we need. We don’t have enough troubles with the comp’ny more than forty percent understren’th and another fucking push coming fast as sure as God makes road apples? So ah told John Saxon ah had to have an exec, hoping ah’d get a mustang like you or him that knew shit from Shinola, and what did those division shitheads send down here? A lying, thieving kike bastard of a pinko who’s so damn dumb in important things that ah don’t think he knows which end to wipe the shit off of! And ah cannot imagine how he ended up in Charlie Comp’ny, to begin with, Milo. His frigging 201 file says he’s a fucking quartermaster officer, for Christ’s sake!”
Momentarily forgetting his circumstances in his righteous wrath, Second Lieutenant John Brettmann abruptly burst out, “It was all a conspiracy, I tell you, a hideous capitalistic conspiracy, to send me over here to die. I was at Camp Lee, Virginia, showing the enlisted men how they could form a union and teaching those who wanted to learn about progressive ideas the philosophy of Marx and Engels and the teachings of Lenin. Then, all at once, I was ordered to report to a port of embarkation and found myself being sent to Europe as a replacement infanty officer. I don’t want to be here any more than you foul-mouthed, anti-Semitic alcoholics want me here. I’d never have gone into the Army, anyway, if the Party hadn’t said to.”