As dawn poured thin gray light over the landscape, Jezek suddenly jerked as if a scorpion had stung him. That was a summertime worry here, but not in weather like this. The Nationalist soldier crawling toward this wreckage, however, was. He’d fixed bushes to his Nazi-style helmet with a strip of inner tube, a trick Vaclav also used. And his rifle had a telescopic sight, so he was probably a sniper on his way out to see what harm he could do the Republicans.
But he’d had a mild case of manana, the common Spanish ailment. He’d had it, and he’d never get over it. Jezek shifted the elephant gun’s barrel so the massive piece bore on the oncoming Spaniard’s track. At less than a hundred meters, he hardly needed the sight. He used it, though. He didn’t want to miss.
When he fired, the gun almost took his shoulder off, as it always did. The Spaniard sank down like a punctured tire. He twitched a few times, even after a hit from a round that could pierce three centimeters of hardened armor plate. Human beings were damned hard to kill. Vaclav chambered another round, just in case. He quickly decided he wouldn’t need it.
He thought about crawling over and getting the enemy sniper’s rifle. It would be a good weapon to bring back. Not while it’s light out, he thought. Somebody might be watching. After darkness would be time enough. You had to be patient if you were going to play this game.
Another trip out of town to raise funds for the war effort-and, on the side, for the Democratic Party. Peggy Druce was more relieved than not to get out of Philadelphia. She never would have felt that way before she went to Europe.
It wasn’t her fault. She understood that. It wasn’t Herb’s fault, either. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. It was just one of the things that happened when two people, even two people who loved each other a lot, got separated from each other for years at a time.
Maybe things would get better pretty soon. Peggy kept hoping so. She had no doubt Herb did, too. Till they did… Sometimes, she was just more comfortable when she didn’t feel that mild awkwardness, that slight constraint, while she was in the same room as her husband.
Carbondale was north and east of Scranton, not very far from the border with New York. It was exactly what its name declared it to be: a coal town, one of perhaps 20,000 people. Most of them were Welsh and Irish-the primarily Slavic mining towns lay farther west. As their ancestors had since the early nineteenth century, the breadwinners went down under the ground to grub out anthracite.
US Highway 6, the main drag, twisted like a snake with a bellyache. What Peggy could see of where people actually lived looked to be on the grim side. Even so, the man who met her at the train station-a plump druggist named Vernon Vaughan-had his own small-scale civic pride.
“Carbondale’s come through the Depression better than a lot of places,” he declared, watery sunlight glinting off the silver rims of his bifocals. “The mines always stayed open. They had to cut back some, but they didn’t shut down. Most people had some money most of the time. That meant the merchants didn’t go under, either.”
“Good for you,” Peggy said, and she meant it. Plenty of towns Carbondale’s size, all across the country, might as well have closed up shop for good after the market crashed in 1929. Since she was here on business, she felt she had to add, “I hope that means you’ll reach for your wallets when it comes time to buy your war bonds.”
“Well, I figure we will.” Vaughan’s double chin wobbled when he nodded. “People here are proud to be Americans. They work hard, sure, but they know they’re better off than they would be if Great-Grandpa stayed in the old country. The Irish, now, they got out ’cause Great-Grandpa was starving. My folks didn’t have it quite so bad, not from the stories I’ve heard, anyway. But I went Over There in 1918, and I was proud to do it.”
“Good for you,” Peggy said again. “My husband was the same way.” She didn’t tell him that she and Herb had lived more than comfortably enough even when the country hurt worst. She didn’t tell him she’d had enough money to stay in Europe for a couple of years, either. The way things worked out, she wished she’d never boarded the liner to begin with.
“There you go,” Vaughan said. “Let me grab your overnight bag there, and I’ll take you to your hotel. It’s only two, three blocks away. And the Rotarians’ hall where you’ll talk is right next door.”
“That all sounds great,” Peggy said, again most sincerely. Some places were better organized, some not so well. Vernon Vaughan seemed to have things under control.
The hotel would never make anyone forget the Ritz Carlton. But it would do. She’d stayed in plenty of worse places on the other side of the Atlantic: she didn’t have to trot down the hall to the bathroom, for instance. And she wouldn’t have to scramble for the shelter when air-raid sirens started shrieking.
She talked about that when she went next door to speak. “They’re still having air-raid alerts on the West Coast, though,” she said. “We have to make sure no enemy can ever strike at us at home. Not ever! When I was in Europe, I saw for myself how horrible that was.”
People applauded her then. But they sat on their hands when she talked about helping England now that she was back in the fight against Germany. Carbondale wasn’t the ideal place for that line, even if she realized as much half a minute later than she should have. What had Vernon Vaughan said? The town was full of Irish and Welsh. And why had their ancestors crossed the ocean? To get out from under their English landlords and overlords.
Time to ad-lib, then. “You may not love England,” she said, “but if you think Hitler’s a better bargain, I’m here to tell you you’re out of your ever-loving minds. If you get on England’s bad side, she’ll break you if she can. If you get on Hitler’s bad side, he’ll kill you-and as many of your friends and neighbors as he can catch, to make sure they don’t get any nasty ideas like freedom on their own.”
That drew a little handclapping, but not much. Peggy went back to laying into Japan. Sooner or later, she expected, there would be a reckoning with the Nazis. But it would probably have to be later. People like the ones in the Rotarian hall here showed why FDR couldn’t go and declare war on Germany. If old Adolf had declared war on America, now…
Well, it hadn’t happened. The best thing the USA could do now against the evil day was strengthen herself as much as she could. If that meant whipping up hatred against the Japs, okay, she’d whip it up. We were fighting them, after all. And we weren’t doing any too well against them right this minute, either.
“Show your hearts with the red, white, and blue!” she finished. “Everybody talks about being a patriot, but patriotism takes more than talk. Put your money where your mouth is, folks. You can’t fight a war with nothing but talk. I wish you could, but you can’t. It takes cash, too.”
She hadn’t expected much. This wasn’t a big city, or even a medium-sized one. And Welshmen, at least, had almost the same kind of name for stinginess as Jews.
But she did great. The bonds the men of Carbondale bought wouldn’t mature for years. Washington could spend the greenbacks they forked over right now. Both sides seemed to think it was a good bargain.
Afterward, Mr. Vaughan took her to dinner at an Italian place down the street. The tablecloths were red and white checks. There was a poster of a Venetian gondolier on one wall, and of the Leaning Tower of Pisa on another. Despite the cliches, the spaghetti and meatballs were fine. Peggy could see the cook. He looked more like a mick than a wop, but he knew what he was doing.
And he had the advantage of American abundance. With plenty of food and plenty of fuel, if you screwed up the food it was your own damn fault, not that of your ingredients the way it might be in screwed-up Europe.
As they ate and drank red wine, Vaughan did his best to put a move on her. Peggy pretended not to notice. He wasn’t her type-not even close. Still and all, getting noticed that way felt good. It reminded her she was alive. It wasn’t that Herb never acted interested. Even so…