But it wasn’t a Lizard: it was a gray-haired colored fellow in blue jeans and a beat-up overcoat running along Chicago Avenue with a big wicker basket under one arm. A couple of shells burst perilously close to him. He yelped and jumped into the trench with Daniels and Donlan.
Mutt looked at him. “Boy, you are one crazy nigger, runnin’ around in the open with that shit fallin’ all around you.”
He didn’t mean anything particularly bad by his words; in Mississippi, he was used to talking to Negroes that way. But this wasn’t Mississippi, and the colored man glared at him before answering, “I’m not a boy and I’m not a nigger, but I guess maybe I am crazy if I thought I could bring some soldiers fried chicken without getting myself called names.”
Mutt opened his mouth, closed it again. He didn’t know what to do. He’d hardly ever had a Negro talk back to him, not even up here in the North. Smart Negroes knew their place… but a smart Negro wouldn’t have braved shellfire to bring him food. Braved was the word, too; Daniels didn’t want to be anywhere but here under cover.
“I think maybe I’ll shut the fuck up,” he remarked to nobody in particular. He started to address the black man directly, but found himself brought up short-what did he call him? Boy wouldn’t do it, and Uncle wasn’t likely to improve matters, either. He couldn’t bring himself to say Mister. He tried something else: “Friend, I do thank you.”
“I’m no friend of yours,” the Negro said. He might have added a couple of choice phrases himself, but he had an overcoat and his basket, of chicken to set against Daniels’ stripes and tommy gun. And Mutt had, after a fashion, apologized. The colored man sighed and shook his head. “What the hell’s the use? Here, come on, feed yourselves.”
The chicken was greasy, the baked potatoes that went with it cold and savorless without salt or butter. Daniels wolfed everything down anyhow. “You gotta eat when you get the chance,” he told Kevin Donlan, “on account of you ain’t gonna get the chance as often as you want to.”
“You bet, Sarge.” The kid wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He took his own tack in talking to the Negro: “That was great, Colonel. A real lifesaver.”
“Colonel?” The colored fellow spat in the dirt of the trench.
“You know damn well I’m not a colonel. Why don’t you just call me by my name? I’m Charlie Sanders, and you could have found it out by askin’.”
“Charlie, that was good chicken,” Mutt said solemnly “I’m obliged.”
“Huh,” Sanders said. Then he scrambled up out of the trench and dashed away toward the next couple of foxholes maybe thirty yards off.
“Watch out for them little mine things the Lizard shells throw around,” Daniels yelled after him. He turned back to Donlan. “Hope he makes it. He keeps goin’ all around like that, though, his number’s gonna come up pretty damn quick.”
“Yeah.” Donlan peered over in the direction Charlie Sanders had run. “That takes guts. He doesn’t even have a gun. I didn’t think niggers had guts like that.”
“You’re under shellfire, son, it don’t matter if you’ve got a gun,” Mutt answered. But that wasn’t the point, and he knew it. After a while, he went on, “One of my grandfathers, I misremember which one right now, he fought against colored troops one time in the States War. He said they weren’t no different than any other damnyankees. Maybe he was right. Me, I don’t know anything any more.”
“But you’re a sergeant,” Donlan said, in exactly the same tone some of Daniels’ ballplayers had used in exclaiming, But you’re the manager.
Mutt sighed. “Just on account of I’m supposed to have all the answers, son, that don’t mean I can pull ’em out from under my tin hat whenever you need ’em. Hell, come to that, it don’t even mean they’re really there. You get as old as I am, you ain’t sure o’ nothin’ no more.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Donlan said. By the way things were going, Mutt thought, the kid didn’t have much chance of getting that old.
“No,” General Patton said. “Hell, no.”
“But, sir”-Jens Larssen spread his hands and assumed an injured expression-“all I want to do is get in touch with my wife, let her know I’m alive.”
“No,” Patton repeated. “No, repeat no, traffic about the Metallurgical Laboratory or any of its personnel save in direst emergency-from which personal matters of any sort are specifically excluded. Those are my direct orders from General Marshall, Dr. Larssen, and I have no intention of disobeying them. That is the most basic security precaution for any important project, let alone one of this magnitude. Marshall has told me next to nothing about the project, and I do not wish to acquire more information: I have not the need to know, and therefore should not-must not-know.”
“But Barbara’s not even with the Met Lab,” Jens protested.
“Indeed not, but you are,” Patton said. “Are you so soft that you would betray the hope of the United States to the Lizards for the sake of your own convenience? By God, sir, I hope you are not.”
“I don’t see how one message constitutes a betrayal,” Larssen said. “Odds are the Lizards wouldn’t even notice it.”
“Possible,” Patton admitted. He got up from behind his desk and stretched, which also gave him the advantage of staring down at Jens. “Possible, but not likely. If the Lizards’ doctrine is at all like ours-and I’ve seen no reason to doubt that-they monitor as many of our signals as they can, and try to shape them into informative patterns. I speak from experience, sir, when I say that no one-no one-can know in advance which piece of the jigsaw puzzle will reveal enough for the enemy to form the entire picture in his mind.”
Jens knew about security; the Met Lab had had large doses of it. But he’d never been subject to military discipline, so he kept arguing: “You could send a message without my name on it, just ‘Your husband is alive and well’ or something like that.”
“No; your request is refused,” Patton said. Then, as if reading Larssen’s mind, he added, “Any attempt to ignore what I have just said and inveigle a signals officer into clandestinely sending such a message will result in your arrest and confinement, if not worse. I remind you I have military secrets of my own here, and I shall not permit you to compromise them. Do I make myself quite clear?”
“Yes, sir, you do,” Larssen said dejectedly. He’d been all set to try to find a sympathetic radioman no matter what Patton said; he still didn’t believe such an innocuous message would have blown the Met Lab’s cover. But he couldn’t gauge how much outgoing, messages might endanger the offensive still building here in western Indiana. That had to succeed, too, or nothing that happened in Chicago would matter, because Chicago would belong to the Lizards.
“If it helps at all, Dr. Larssen, you have my sympathy,” Patton said.
In a gruff sort of way, he probably even meant it, Jens thought. He said, “Thank you, General,” and walked out of Patton’s office.
Outside, the ground was mottled with melting snow and clumps of yellowish dead grass. Thick low yellow-gray clouds rolled by overhead, The wind came from out of the northwest, and carried a nip that quickly started to turn Jens’ beaky nose to an icicle. It had all the makings of a winter storm, but no snow fell.
His thoughts as gloomy as the weather, Larssen walked on in Oxford, Indiana. Potemkin village ran through his mind. From the air, the, little town undoubtedly seemed as quiet as any other gasoline-starved hamlet in the Midwest. But concealed by houses and garages, haystacks and woodpiles, gathered armored forces plenty, Jens thought, to give the Nazis pause. The only trouble was, they faced worse foes than mere Germans.
Larssen stepped into the Bluebird Cafe. A couple of locals and a couple, of soldiers in civvies (nobody not, in civvies was allowed on the streets of Oxford-security again, Jens thought) sat at the counter. Behind it, the cook made pancakes on a wood-burning griddle instead of his now useless gas range. The griddle wasn’t vented; smoke filled the room. He looked over his shoulder at Larssen. “Waddaya want, mac?”